California – part 2

Venice, Manhattan and the West Coast sunsets

Venice Beach – or as I like to call it ‘Camden-by-the-Sea’ – wow. This place took me by surprise with its mix of muscles and weed.

It did feel, for one moment, like I was walking in to Camden Market, in north London, with its colourful shops, people and music.

But this was Venice Beach is all its eclectic and diverse glory.

1. To the left, see the gentlemen preening and posing and flexing their muscles.
2. To the right, see the gentlemen begging for weed, selling weed and smoking weed.

He so wanted me to take his picture. Well, here you are buddy!

This dude was in his 60s!

Harry worked out too… 😉

The other bit of Venice Beach

1. Behind us, bars, cafes, tattoo parlours and weed paraphernalia shops.
2. In front of us, a fabulous beach made for chilling and a boardwalk made for cycling.

Beautiful boardwalk

Beautiful beach

This bit of Venice Beach was
very gentle

The seedy bit of Venice Beach

There are some lovely bits of Venice Beach away from the beachfront with canals and bridges (it is named after Venice, after all!), but we saw them only fleetingly. I found the beachfront very intriguing, mind you, but perhaps not a place to venture on one’s own after dark…..!

Manhattan Beach

I think I could possibly live here. Ah, the golden sand, the juicing bars, the kooky houses. Yes, this was a smashing beach that struck a chord with me, and apparently not far from where they filmed some of Baywatch, like Redondo Beach, where we stayed. Expect I saw no one like Pamela. Or David. (Phew).

Manhattan Beach is my kind of beach!

And, blow me down, it’s only Good Morning America filming on the pier at Manhattan Beach for a piece on the USA west coastline! How we nonchalantly walked up the pier, our hair (well, mine) blowing in the wind, eating our ice creams. I have no idea if they used our piece on the segment the next morning, but I like to think they did, as that means I’m a little bit closer to realising my dream of being on Good Morning America 😉 .

Sunsets

Everyone says you have to watch a west coast sunset, so we did just that.

Sunset at Moonlight Beach

Everyone hangs around to watch it

It gets cooler as the sun goes down (obviously!! 😉 )

Next up: San Diego!