Areas of Interest
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Manhattan Beach Pier
Open to the public Saturdays & Sundays 10 a.m. to sunset, Monday through Friday 3 p.m. to sunset.
Call: (310) 379-8117. http://www.beachcalifornia.com/manhatt.html
Griffith Observatory
Griffith Observatory
Point Vicente Lighthouse
31550 Palos Verdes Drive, West in Rancho Palos Verdes, California The tower and a small museum are open the second Saturday of the month between the hours of 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM. Admission is free.
Call (310) 541-0334. http://www.palosverdes.com/pvlight/
Redondo Beach Bike Path
http://www.labikepaths.com/SoBay.html
South Coast Botanical Garden
26300 Crenshaw Boulevard |
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
La Brea Tar Pits
5801 Wilshire Blvd.
Warner Bros. Studio Tour
3400 W. Riverside Dr.
J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Dr. |
A scenic 928-foot-long pier at the end of Manhattan Beach Boulevard offers fishing all year. Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium at the end of the pier is free to the public. It includes a huge Shark Tank, Touch Tank with tide pool animals common to Southern California, tanks with lobsters, baby sharks and brightly colored, non-native fish and invertebrates.
A beloved icon of Los Angeles and world leader in public astronomy. Since 1935, the Observatory has given tens of millions of visitors the opportunity to become observers. Griffith Observatory offers exciting shows in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium, public telescopes, and observing and astronomy exhibits.
Standing on the most southwesterly point of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Point Vicente Lighthouse has long been one of this area's jewels. To the landsman, the lighthouse is scenic delight and continual attraction to sightseers, tourists, photographers and painters. To the mariner, the lighthouse is an aid to navigation which marks the northern end of the Catalina Channel on the Pacific coast. It helps him plot his position and warns him to avoid the rocky schoals which surround the nearby shore and, in a heavy fog, its horn will warn him if he gets too close to the dangerous shore.
This portion of the beach trail runs southward from Marina Del Rey and has the most naturally spectacular scenery. The route follows a flat, curving path that snakes among the dunes of Dockweiler Beach State Park; in Manhattan Beach it's more like a broad boardwalk, and near King Harbor it's commercial - you'll have to dismount for part of the way through this busy shopping area.
The South Coast Botanic Garden, "The Jewel of the Peninsula", is located on the beautiful Palos Verdes Peninsula, located 10 miles south of the Los Angeles Airport in California. Conveniently located to many South Bay communities, this 87-acre Botanic Garden has more than 2,500 different species of plants from as far away as Australia, the Mediterranean, and southern Africa. The wide variety of plant life provides food and shelter to an abundant wildlife and bird population, and over 200 species of birds are sighted annually.
The LACMA is in the top tier of American art museums. The 110,000-piece collection includes prized works by Degas, Rembrandt, Matisse, Magritte and Monet, among others. Don't miss the treasure trove of Japanese Edo paintings. It's said that only the emperor of Japan possesses a more valuable collection. The museum is located 10 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. There is ample parking. Or take a cab.
These primordial pools of oil have been bubbling to the surface for 40,000 years, fatally trapping mastodons, giant vultures, camels, bears, ground sloths - more than 125 animal species in all, many of them now extinct. The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, next door, houses the largest fossil collection of Ice Age plants and animals in the world, all pulled from the pits. The Tar Pits are located 10 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. There is ample parking or hail a cab.
Warner Bros. Studios also offers tours. Take this one. The 2 - hour tour escorts you to working film and TV show sound stages, back lot streets, sound studios where you can watch editors add sound effects to film, to a wardrobe building, to the craft shop where carpenters build sets. The guides take you where the action is. No tours are ever the same. Keep an eye out for actors crossing the grounds. The studio is located 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. There is ample parking or take a cab.
It is, without question, the most dramatic museum setting you'll ever experience. Take a tram from the parking lot to the top of a hillside. Alight at a post-modern campus of Italian travertine marble and glass, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The artworks are from Getty's personal collection - and they are stunning. Pre-20th century European paintings, drawings, sculpture and decorative arts. A small, but exquisite collection of antiquites. Don't miss Van Gogh's Irises, for which the museum paid a reported $53.9 million. The museum is located 17 miles west of downtown Los Angeles