On a recent visit to LA, my uncle said he'd arranged for a Hollywood tour for about ten of us. If you know me, I'm the last guy to pick up a gossip mag or care what the Kardashians are up to, so this sounded about as much fun as an upside-down shower at Gitmo. I was, like, so wrong.
Jim (the tour guide) picked us up in a luxury Mercedes minibus, with bucket leather seats straight out of a private airplane. Jim is super-friendly and entertaining, and drove us around for about three hours through Hollywood, West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip, through Beverly Hills, and even through Holmby Hills, which I had never heard of, but is apparently *the* hot neighborhood for the rich and famous. (With Jim's enthusiasm, it's a little hard not to get a little caught up in all the celebrity madness.)
To me, some of the most interesting parts were hearing about the history of Los Angeles, the way the city surrounds a few smaller, independent cities (like West Hollywood and Beverly Hills), and driving through the various neighborhoods and shopping districts to get a feel for the different cultural and religious communities in LA and how they all fit together.
In terms of landmarks, we saw CBS's huge "Television City" campus, Paramount Studios and their famous gates, the old RKO Studio, Hollywood Boulevard with the theatres and all the craziness (from the comfort of our air-conditioned minibus), the Capitol Records building, the La Brea tar pits and LACMA, whichever street in Beverly Hills the celebrities actually shop on (i.e., not Rodeo Drive), the Chateau Marmont, the Beverly Hills Hotel, a ton of crazy overdone mansions in Beverly Hills, and last but not least, the Playboy Mansion.
This is a top-notch operation, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Jim is energetic, well-spoken, and pretty damned funny; I recommend him highly. read more