Venice Beach

We’d been to California only once before and that was with our children so it was very much Disney centric.  We had a great few days as Mickey’s guest but this time we had a chance to do a little exploring around the academic conferences that were the primary reason for our visit.

Based in Anaheim we decided that a Sunday at the beach in LA would be fun. The way the conference agenda panned out meant that I had pretty much a day free before a late afternoon session on my research area of interest.

Initially our thoughts had been a day at Disneyland, very convenient to our hotel but not at the top of my favourite person’s agenda and certainly pricey $238 for two tickets. Given the glorious weather and the fact that Venice Beach was home to my favourite person’s new favourite clothes store, Kit and Ace, it was a “no brainer”!

After a quick look through our Lonely Planet guide and Trip Advisor it was downstairs and into an Uber car and onto Venice Beach. Our driver was delightful, chatting about lots of  interesting stuff about living in California and after just over an hour we were dropped at the incredibly busy Venice Beach. The traffic was amazing, still it was Sunday a glorious day and it was LA where cars are King!

Venice Beach conjured up so many visions. Girls on roller blades, palms, street vendors,  ice cream, burly men and lots of people. It didn’t disappoint.

After walking along the promenade adjacent to the beach for about an hour we decided to search for coffee before heading inland to Kit and Ace. Just off the beach we found a lovely little coffee shop where they had no trouble making the best coffee we’d had on the trip to date. Refreshed, we walked on to a delightful shopping strip so my favourite person could visit her favourite store. Continue reading →