Monday 17th - Breakfast in LA and a wander through Downtown

Our first full day in L.A.
Drawing the curtains back, we were greeted with a sunny day and a view of the Walt Disney Concert Hall - that's the weird shaped futuristic grey/silver building in the photo below:

 Plans for today were just to acclimatise and get our bearings, so we stayed in the Downtown area.

Art on Grand Avenue

First port of call was to rediscover Uncle Johns on Grand Avenue, the main street that runs alongside the back of our hotel. It is quite a long walk, with the Omni between 2nd and 4th street and Uncle Johns right down almost in the LA live area, by 9th street.

When we last visited LA in 2011, this was our daily stop for breakfast. Nothing about Uncle Johns has changed in those intervening 7 years: they still don't have wi-fi, the cafe is home to film crews tucking into their hearty breakfasts before they hit the film locations, the food is still scrumptious and they still do spicy pork chops. A great start to the day.



After breakfast, we stocked up on some essential toiletries we did not pack to save weight in our luggage and then we walked a few blocks to take in Spring Street area between 7th and 2nd streets.



Whilst is CVS getting our toiletries, we confirmed that everything in America is LARGE - they don't have small rodents like mice over here, they have the big rodents, aka Rats!

Some of the architecture in this area is lovely, with older decorative buildings shadowed with the newer modern ones. It was a lovely stroll in the December sunshine.

We got a few shots of some of these old art decor and ornate buildings but it was a shame to see some of them boarded up and being redeveloped. Hope they don't lose any of the charm.

Some shots of the buildings are below:

Le Petit Paris

After our wanders and taking in The Last Bookstore and The Bradbury Building (see next pages), we ended up at the 24 hour parking garage to double check it was OK to be parking overnight (many car parks do not seem to like overnighters) and we had a good chat with the security guard. He was very genial.

Back at the hotel, we had a coffee at The Corner Bakery in the Plaza, right outside the back of the hotel.

Below is a sculpture outside the Museum of Contemporary Art which is also located on the Plaza, at the back of the hotel