SoCal Summer (part 1)

After a quick debate that Italy lost, and a realisation that we didn’t have many options of dates for our summer holiday, we decided upon and then booked a trip to Southern California (plus a bit of Nevada). We left July 20th and returned August 8th. Unlike previous USA trips, it was just the two of us. Zosia stayed home.

The trip started in Los Angeles and then we drove to; Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, San Diego and Disneyland (Anaheim) from where we returned to LAX for the flight home. We’ve done LA before, in 2016 and 2018, and I’d been to that Disneyland many years ago but the rest were all firsts for both of us.

Flights both ways were with LOT, direct between Warsaw and LAX. It’s an 11-12hr flight, which is too long, but neither were cancelled (like the last time we booked this route with LOT) and both were on time using a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. Going out, the flight was more or less full but coming back we had some space to spread out and had a 3-seat middle row to ourselves. The only thing really worth mentioning about the flights is how awful the food was in terms of both quantity and quality. Considering how long the flight is and the fact that even in economy the tickets are not exactly cheap (6,500 PLN return, each), I think it’s reasonable to expect a lot better than we got. If we’d known, we would have bought sandwiches, drinks and snacks at the airport and been a lot happier.

Los Angeles

We like LA. The last two times we’d visited we stayed in West Hollywood so this time we were either going to go for the beach or downtown and as there were more things on the ‘to do’ list downtown, that’s where we ended up. We stayed at the Hotel Figueroa, which is part of the Unbound Collection by Hyatt. Excellent hotel. Easily the best we’ve stayed at in LA and the best of all on this trip. Everything was great; room, lobby, bar, cafe, pool and especially the service.

We ticked off a lot of things we’d not done before in LA. Roughly two days downtown, a day in Hollywood and a day at the beach. We had a nice meal at the Michelin starred “Camphor” in the Arts District, lobster rolls in Grand Central Market and crab in Santa Monica. We saw the Keith Haring exhibition at The Broad, rode on the Angels Flight, went up the tower at City Hall, walked the length of downtown from Olvera back to our hotel, revisited the Walk of Fame, another walk from Venice to Santa Monica, and a lot more besides.

After what is now in total two to three weeks in LA, we’ve pretty much done everything we want to do.

Santa Barbara

We rented a Toyota Rav 4 from Midway Car Rental in LA and drove for a couple of hours to Santa Barbara. Midway and the car were both good and we’d use them again. First time I’d used Apple CarPlay and it’s great, although I spent a few days complaining about how dark the screen was before I found the pretty obvious way to make it brighter!

Santa Barbara seemed tiny, quiet and old-fashioned compared to LA, which is to be expected as it’s like comparing London to Weston-super-Mare. Although there are a few hotels, for the most part the accommodation is in smaller scale, motel type places in residential areas and we were in one of those, the Harbor House Inn, a short walk from the beach.

The town seems geared to beach-life and boating and this is backed up by the range of beach/sea equipment that was available to borrow from the storeroom of our Inn. One afternoon we took advantage of that and spent a very nice time on a nearly empty beach. I even went for a swim in the sea and had a close encounter with a family of seals, which was a lot of fun!

We took a day trip out to Solvang where we visited the Mission and then moved on to the Rideau Vineyard, which was established in 1997 by Iris Rideau, the first female African-American winery owner in the USA. They were very hospitable and happy to spend time talking about their vineyard and wine making process despite the fact we couldn’t take any home and they don’t have a license to sell in Europe. We did try a few glasses though!

Another trip was to Montecito, the hillside idyll that is or was home to Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Rob Lowe, Tyler Perry, Ariana Grande and other stars. Very quiet place. All the interesting stuff is pretty well hidden away, not that we went looking. Had a drink at a cafe, saw a very nice E Type, bought some mints and left.

Perhaps the highlights of Santa Barbara were the meals we had at Brophy Bros restaurant and the Hawaiian (Aloha) shirts I bought in their store. The Blue Point oysters were delicious and very fresh, as was everything they served and it’s a lovely view from their balcony across the harbour. The shirts are Reyn Spooner and the number of nice comments I got when wearing them, even when I got home, was surprising because I’m no kind of fashion guru.