Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
157
Moments
Marina Oasis
One of my favorite places in L.A. to get away from it all is a tiny, quiet, little-
known park in Marina del Rey that overlooks the mouth of the harbor. All day
long you can sit on a bench and enjo y the cool breeze as a never-ending parade
of beautiful yachts and sailboats slowly works its way to the ocean or back to the
marina. To reach this relaxing oasis, from Venice Beach drive to the south end of
Pacific Avenue, turn left on Via Marina, and park in one of the met ered spaces
(bring quarters and binoculars).
since disappeared (like P acific Ocean Park, an entir e amusement par k perched on off-
shore pilings), and others hav e been shor tened by battering storms and ar e now mere
shadows (or stumps) of their former selv es, but y ou can still experience those halcy on
days of yesteryear at the Santa Monica Pier.
Built in 1908 for passenger and cargo ships, the Santa Monica Pier does a pretty good
job of recapturing the glory days of Southern California. The wooden wharf is now home
to seafood restaurants and snack shacks, a touristy Mexican cantina, a gaily-colored turn-
of-the-20th-century indoor wooden
carousel
(which P aul N ewman operated in
The
Sting
), and an
aquarium
filled with shar ks, rays, octopus, eels, and other local sea life.
Summer evening concerts, which are free and range from big band to Miami-style Latin,
draw crowds, as does the small amusement area perched halfway down. Its name,
Pacific
Park
(
&
310/260-8744;
www.pacpark.com), hear kens back to the granddaddy pier
amusement par k in California, P acific O cean Park; this updated v ersion has a
solar-
powered Ferris wheel,
a mild-mannered
roller coaster,
and 10 other rides, plus a high-
tech
arcade
shootout. But anglers still head to the end to fish, and nostalgia buffs to view
the photographic display of the pier 's history. This is the last of the gr eat pleasure piers,
offering rides, romance, and perfect panoramic views of the bay and mountains.
Parking is av ailable for $8 to $10 on both the pier deck and the beachfr ont nearby.
Limited short-term parking is also available. For information on twilight concerts (gener-
ally held Thurs mid-June through the end of Aug), call
&
310/458-8900
or visit www.
santamonicapier.org.
7
OTHER TOP ATTRACTIONS
The Getty Center Los Angeles
Kids
Since opening in 1997, the Richar d
Meier-designed Getty Center has quickly assumed its place in the L.A. landscape (liter-
ally and figuratively) as the city's cultural acropolis and international mecca. H eadquar-
ters for the Getty Trust's research, education, philanthropic, and conservation concerns,
the postmodernist complex—perched on a hillside in the S anta Monica Mountains and
swathed in Italian travertine marble—is most frequently visited for the museum galleries
displaying the G etty's enormous collection of I mpressionist paintings, tr uckloads of
glimmering French furniture and decorative arts, fine illuminated manuscripts, contem-
porary photography, and European drawings. The area that's open to the public consists
of five two-story pavilions set around an open courtyard, and each gallery within is spe-
cially designed to complement the works on display. A sophisticated system of program-
mable window louvers allows many works (particularly paintings) to be displayed in the
natural light in which they were created for the first time in the modern era. One of these
