Santa Monica… everything a girl like me could want.  It’s beautiful, it’s streets are wide and it has All The Stores.

Each station features an array of products and styling tools.  The lovely staff also are on hand to off you a coffee or water if you’d like either.

 The one stylist attends to you from wash to finish. 

Perfect hair bouncing with each step, I made my way up the road to meet the rest of my tour group at A Day In LA’s headquarters.

Our first stop was Venice Beach, the beachfront community that actually began its life as a mini Venice, complete with canals.  The houses here are smaller and more closely grouped than they are elsehwere in the city, a throwback to the European village style of living that tobacco billionaire Albert Kinney had for the area.

After a time, the canals fell into disrepair and the area became a beacon for the artistic community.  The Doors and Janes Addiction were bands that formed in the area.

The Venice Skate Park enables young and old to safely practice their art.  Legend has it that the skate boarding took off in the area because the local youth needed something to do when they weren’t any waves to ride.  The Z Boys are a famous, local group of skate boarders who have also had a film made about themselves.

I can’t get over how beautiful California is in its geographical contrasts and diversity.  Those rugged mountain ranges peek out from the most unexpected places.

 Muscle Beach is a little way up from the skate park.

It was a bit chilly when we were there but a dedicated few were training in the sand.  With more clothing on than I suspect they would do on a summer’s morning.

From sneakers flung over electricity cables to … Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. Postcode… 90210.

via Google images

Oh Donna / Tori…  it was hard not to step back in time when 90210 was my must see TV every week as I strolled the immaculate sidewalks with their fire hydrants painted platinum silver and the occasional film crew disrupting the landscape of pristine store fronts and their matching sales attendants.

I always had an image in my mind that Rodeo Drive would be brash and ostentatious with helmet hair and power shoulder pads as far as the eye could see. 

Instead, it was all very civilized and as low key as you can be when your focus is luxury retail.

Dali peaked out at me from a marble tiled building as I walked up a cobbled laneway and admired the wrought iron and gold leaf features above.

I haevn’t window shopped aimlessly in ages and this was the perfect place to get back on the wagon.  Above, dreamy gowns by Dior.

 I always love a good Tiffany window.

Hermes broke with tradition by going for stark white for their store on Rodeo Drive.

Another house that dressed to suit the climate of an adopted home was Louis Vuitton.  Silver awnings set off windows dressed in vibrant tropical prints.  In the foreground is ‘The Torso’ by Robert Graham, Anjelica Houston’s late husband.

The Beverly Wilshire was holding firm, though and upholding tradition with its facade.

The Grove is an outdoor shopping arcade that’s a short drive from Rodeo.

It continues with the latter’s parallel universe approach to life.  A tram line runs through the mall and you can ride it with a uniformed conducter. Master SSG loved the video I sent him of it,

All the stores are airy and light.  A bit more Tiffany, sorry. They had a little pop up store on the main lawn and there was a waiter outside with a tray of cakes.

Speaking of cake, did you know that Dominique Ansel, the father of  cronuts, has a bakery in LA as well as New York?

The cakes were stunning.

And quirkily unique.  But the queue.  I just couldn’t.

So I scooted over to my perennial favourite dessert stop in the US, The Cheesecake Factory.  Where there wasn’t a queue but there was delicious dessert to go.