Santa Monica

After three nights, it’s time to move on. I’d love to tell you more about what happened in Vegas, but you know what they say…

So it’s onto the short flight to sprawling Los Angeles, the second biggest city in the nation, with 11 million people in the city and 18 million in the urban surrounds. We’ll be on the beach in the popular tourist destination of Santa Monica.

A delightful and historic old pier that’s sometimes described here as the greatest entertainment pier in the world, by people who’ve never heard of Southend.

We’ll see more of it later.

I don’t want to get into explaining the complex of cities that make up this huge conurbation and how they all relate to each other – the sun’s out and I’d rather hit the beach. Just to say that Santa Monica is a city in its own right despite being surrounded by LA proper on three sides. It’s a relaxed, liberal, upscale town which prides itself on its commitment to environmentalism (they even have a facility to clean off the street runoff and reuse it).