CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES, BEVERLY HILLS, VENICE BEACH, MALIBU

Today instead of getting on a tour to see the sights, we decided to do our own.

The Tracey and Belle tour of L.A. At no cost - apart from petrol.

Technically it should be named Shelia's L.A. Tour because if it wasn't for her (the gps, remember?) we wouldn't have been able to do it.

Anyway we started out going past the Walt Disney Concert Hall which was designed by Frank Gehry. You may have heard of him - well probably not unless you're into architecture. But as well as the concert hall and other stuff, he has been doing a lot to revitalise downtown Los Angeles which in the past has had a reputation for being a bit scuzzy.

At least that's what the LPG says. Not having been there before I can't really say for sure. But with most things the LPG has been pretty spot on.

Anyway as you can see it's an amazing building. If you like that kind of look. Which I do.

Our next stop was Rodeo Drive. The shopping part is not actually that large but it's definitely very hoity toity. No stars in sight though.

We also drove around Beverly Hills - lots of money there. Belle wants to live there. It was nice to see a place where all the houses are unique and individual (lots of developments in America where all the houses are pretty much the same with the same colour scheme).

I wanted to drive past a few of the major studios and we found Paramount pretty easily. But do you think I could find Fox Studios where my buddies from Bones film?

Nope.

Well we found the general area and what we think was the entry to the carpark but that was it. Bit disappointing.

For me, not Belle.

I had heard a lot about Venice Beach so after getting over not finding Fox (well sort of getting over it) we headed on down there. It was kind of dodgy but I can see that in summer it would be a place full of people and lots of entertainment. We should have gone to Santa Monica beach - I think it's the posh one.

Our last place for the day was Malibu and here too there is lots of money. A lot of the houses are accessed from private roads so we just drove along the coast road and got an overview of the whole thing. It was a nice drive actually. Much better than the boring drive on the interstate we usually have when driving to our next stop.