Los Angeles is featured in many movies and pop songs – but tourists are often disappointed with the city. Our author knows where it is really great.
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Of course, a weekend on Sunset Boulevard must start like this, in the open Ford Mustang Cabriolet and with loud music. Quentin Tarantino suggests in his film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” to simply turn on the radio because “Hush” by Deep Purple runs, “Choo Choo Train” by the Box Tops or “Ramblin ‘Gamblin’ Man” by Bob Seger. That may be, but the best song on this wonderful road that you have to drive either at sunset or around midnight is “Angela Surf City” by Walkmen – to experience in the wonderfully crazy film “Seven Psychopaths” when Woody Harrelson heats in an open convertible through Los Angeles.
The metropolis on the west coast is repeatedly caressed by filmmakers, especially by Tarantino or before that by Damien Chazelle in “La La Land”. However, they are mostly homages to “Old Hollywood”, the supposedly glamorous times in these films between five and 50 years ago. When tourists come to Los Angeles today, they are often disappointed with the travel guide to the Walk of Fame (a sidewalk with stars on it), the Hollywood sign (letters on a mountain) or the place of the Oscar ceremony (a tourist mall) sends.
They notice that you can’t even go to the Playboy mansion and that the stars don’t sit in front of their villas all the time and wave at visitors. They then get in a taxi, get excited about the traffic and dinner prices at Ocean Prime next to Rodeo Drive on the way home to the hotel, and then tell people back home that this Los Angeles is a pretty unattractive city – which the residents do, by the way Not that bad, because then less motivated German tourists come to the city. The Angelenos like their city exactly as it is.
Visitors should rather use the films and songs for which they came. There are people who are looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and there are those who care more about the rainbow. Los Angeles is a city for rainbow people because for most people there won’t be a pot in the end. And has anyone ever noticed how much the protagonists in films about Los Angeles sit in the car and drive around somewhere? Being on the road is more important than arriving, you have to experience this city in the truest sense of the word – every trip leads to a completely new world.
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The weekend has to start on Sunset Boulevard.
Picture: Jessy Asmus
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The metropolis on the west coast is not a city for night owls. Here is a picture of downtown.
Picture: Jessy Asmus
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MacArthur Park is a place to stroll: walk around the lake and feed swans. But preferably only during the day, after sunset there are drug dealers.
Picture: Jessy Asmus
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Route 66 runs across Los Angeles and ends at the Santa Monica pier.
Picture: Jessy Asmus
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Santa Monica Beach is a meeting point for families: street musicians sit on the beach, the Ferris wheel turns comfortably, the roller coaster is wild.
Picture: Jessy Asmus
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So: Rent a convertible, cruise to “Angela Surf City” on Sunset Boulevard, turn left on Rodeo Drive, up into the Hollywood Hills, to “Bring a Little Lovin” from The Braves via Mulholland Drive to Sherman Oaks to the Mexican restaurant Casa Vega.
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio show there in the Tarantino film (by the way, at table C 6). Hollywood stars come almost every night in real life because they are barely recognized in the minimally lit restaurant.
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