Here is the first in a series of posts I plan to do of the many cities of California. I've lived here my whole life and travelled a lot of places, but, save San Francisco, I never really took a lot of time to look around at my own state and appreciate the many great cities here until I started doing this. Hope you enjoy!
I'll start with the "big" California city: Los Angeles. I went down over the past Memorial Day weekend and spent two days taking pictures of LA and the surrounding areas. And of course! I chose the time of year when it was foggy, so, while the temperature was nice to walk around, I couldn't hardly get any good skyline shots.
To get to downtown, I took the Metro from Hollywood. Despite the auto centric sterotype of LA, the Metro was quite convenient and pretty crowded for a Saturday morning. And only $3 for a one day pass!!
My first sites in downtown...
Brand new high rise living
I first headed south of the financial district to see the architecture of old downtown which contained quite a variety of buildings. First, one last modern one...
A popular spot...
Theatre is not the only form of entertainment in LA...
I really love the green, art deco design of this one
Many of these buildings were run down, but, had great potential if refurbished
Who says Los Angeles isn't dense?
I then started my way back up towards "modern" downtown Los Angeles
I became a bit obessed with this building.
"The smallest railway in the world"
One last look at old downtown
One last tease...
...and, finally, the US Bank/Library Tower up close
I have a thing for red buildings...
These trees with the purple flowers were EVERYWHERE in LA. If anyone can tell me what they are, I'd appreciate it. They have such beautiful color.
I've seen this in the Bay Area as well, I love it!
The famous LA City Hall building
CalTRANS Building (I saw the construction of this on Modern Marvels)
Federal buildings always seem to have really good design
Union Station, which was quite crowded, is connected to not only Amtrak and commuter train, but also two metro lines (here I took the gold line to Pasadena)
On my way back to Hollywood towards the end of the day I stopped at MacArthur park (and survived).
Some urban wildlife
And finally Downtown LA from my hotel in Beverly Hills...damn the fog!!