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God bless America? No, God bless the NHS. 80 of 80 Ciao Users found the following review helpful
Rating from kevin121 5 Stars ()

Advantages Geared up for tourism; good weather; good base for exploring

Disadvantages none during daylight!

I had opted to stay in Santa Monica when I travelled to California on a recent fly-drive. From here, I figured, I could see most of Los Angeles, before heading inland to stay at Anaheim, to meet The Mouse and his friends. Despite it being part of Greater Los Angeles, if you want to stay in LA, where you stay will probably come down to three neighbourhoods: Hollywood (which despite the heritage is really quite down at heel and grubby); Anaheim (to visit Disneyland) or here.

Judging from what I saw, a large part of the income in Santa Monica itself is based on tourism. Either in the amount of restaurants and cafes and bars there are, and the hotel/motel trade. It strikes me that there isn't really a difference between a hotel and a motel here because from what I saw, they all seem to provide ample parking. We chose to stay at a Days Inn on Santa Monica Boulevard itself as the hotel was reasonably priced but didn't seem tacky from the photos.

Broadly speaking, when it comes to the roads, the Streets run North to South (parallel to the beach) and the Avenues run West to East. Although I'm not the best of navigator's, this did make things easier for me when we were trying to find our way around the neighbourhood in the hire car.

The heart of the town, if that's what you can call it, is the Downtown area. This is from PacificCoast Highway up to Lincoln Boulevard. The main attraction for tourists, be it shopping, dining out or clubbing is situated around Third Street Promenade, a wide pedestrianised street where you can dine al fresco and people-watch at the same time.

I can't talk about Santa Monica and not mention it's pier. This pier was built in 1909 and in the first building you come to called the Hippodrome Carousel Building, you will find the oldest carousel in the States, dating from 1922. Walk to the end of the pier beyond the usual touristy tatt and you'll come to the big wheel, or Ferris Wheel as the American's call it. You can't go there and not have a ride up in this, you get fantastic views looking up and down the beaches. This is supposedly one of the best locations in LA for watching the sun setting, but we weren't there at nightime, we were too busy tucking into our dinners back at a Third Street Promenade Italian restaurant. You can park on the pier itself at a cost of $8, but we chose to park along the seafront and walk to it.

The beaches themselves are clean and have lovely golden sand. There was a lifeguard on duty the morning that we went there, who has an area marked around him where you aren't allowed to sit. This was presumably to give him clear vision of the sea. I was expecting that this being Los Angeles, home of cosmetic surgery, and this being the beach where they had actually filmed the TV series Baywatch, I would feel out of place and be surrounded by only the most honed and beautiful bodies. I was relieved to find that that wasn't the case at all, it seemed very family friendly judging from the amount of people who had come with their youngsters.
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  • MAFARRIMOND 19/05/2012 19:40
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    Enjoyable read.

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