Lewis the Lion and Helen enjoy soaking up the atmosphere on Venice Beach
So from the elegant Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, Lewis the Lion headed a short distance along the coast to another famous Los Angeles beach resort, Venice Beach. He’d heard particularly that this place was great for people watching and for watching the world go by and he wasn’t to be disappointed.
Lewis the Lion looks along Venice Beach towards Santa Monica
Lewis the Lion could see that the similarities between Venice in Italy and the Venice in Los Angeles were minimal. The Italian Venice had the water of the lagoon and the Grand Canal whereas the Venice of L.A. had the water of the Pacific Ocean. And then both places had an abundance of tourists and crowds but that’s where any resemblance seemed to stop. Venice, California was in fact a Mecca for those enjoying the beach life-style and it was here that one of the most watched television shows of the eighties and nineties, Baywatch, was filmed. The television show was based on the story of the lifeguards working along the Californian coast and Lewis the Lion felt as if he’d walked right onto their studio set!
Lewis the Lion sees a lifeguard station at the foot of the pier
He could see miles of sandy beaches, with the Santa Monica ferris wheel in the distance. Running parallel to the beach itself were palm-tree lined walkways and a cycle path.
There is a designated cycle lane for cyclists
Appearing at regular intervals along the beach were wooden lifeguard huts, elevated on platforms above the ground with ramps and ladders running up to them. From the top of every one fluttered the American flag and like in the TV show, lifeguards appeared in their iconic red bathing suits and shorts.
A lifeguard stands watch over Venice Beach
As he looked out to sea he could see people paddling through the gently lapping waves, whilst a little further back surfers trying to catch a wave. He could see Helen watching them very carefully but he will tell you more about that in his next blog! Some people, further back again in the water were riding on jet-skis: the water certainly was a busy place and Lewis the Lion could understand why the lifeguards were on a constant lookout to check that everyone was OK.
Ahead, he saw the now familiar sight of the brown Californian pelicans fly by, along with many seagulls.
Birds fly overhead of the sunbathing crowds
A Californian seagull with Venice Beach in the background
Looking out to sea, small planes also flew by, trailing behind them advertisements for local events and attractions.
Airplanes fly past the sunbathers with adverts trailing behind them
On the beach itself were many people sunbathing in full bikinis and swim suits, although the parasols seemed to spring up like mushrooms as they headed towards the heat of the midday sun.
He could tell that English wasn’t the only language spoken in California as Spanish was also present on signs around him. In fact he’d heard that more people on the west coast of America speak Spanish than English, especially with their nearest neighbours being Mexican. He understood why Spanish is such a useful language to speak in today’s world!
Spanish and English bilingual signage is all around
As if the beach and sea weren’t busy enough, the walkways and cycle paths behind them proved to be another hive of activity, all set off with the Californian hills as a backdrop. “This is where the real fun started!” Lewis the Lion thought to himself as because he had arrived on a public holiday, ‘Labor Day’ as the Americans call it, there seemed to be even more people in town.
The holiday crowds fill the busy walkways running parallel to the beach
There were activities of every description available to the public: a skate park, tennis courts,
Tennis, squash and basketball courts can all be found on Venice Beach
basketball courts, volleyball courts,
Beach volleyball down on Venice Beach
squash courts and Muscle Beach – an outdoor gym, famous for posers flexing their muscles to the passing public!
Muscle Beach
The famous outdoor gym in Venice is called ‘Muscle Beach’
In fact Lewis the Lion saw many rather eccentric types near the walkways, such as the heavily muscular female and male bodybuilders,
Many people pose, showing off their muscles and plastic surgery!
people riding extremely high unicycles,a pair of ladies blasting their music whilst doing a dance in roller-boots
A roller-boot dance to loud music!
and a bare-topped man on the larger side whizzing around on his rollerblades clearly showing off his new plastic surgery: a clearly defined panel for his stomach muscles! Lewis the Lion noticed that L.A. really did seem to attract those in search of the perfect body as whilst there was clear evidence of good, clean living such as yoga and pilates studios, plastic surgery was also in evidence all around him from people with enhanced lips, bottoms and chests, not to mention the multiple tanning studios, corrective eye opticians and tattoo parlours running alongside the walkways. However, what made Lewis the Lion smile was the fact that this place was in fact a place with people of every race, colour, shape and size. It really seemed like a universal melting pot and a real celebration of life itself!
Spirituality seemed like a focus for many Californians and there seemed to be religious places of worship or centres for all of the main faith groups, e.g. The Jewish and Buddist Centres. Lewis the Lion smelt incense sticks burning and saw a strange but relaxing act taking place with a person lying down on a bed whilst big gongs were chimed around them!
Relaxing on the beach with beating gongs in your ears!
Venice Beach was truly a tourist hub as there were many souvenir shops and many artists trying to sell their crafts.
Typical souvenir shops line the walkways of Venice Beach
Lewis the Lion was intrigued by a side-stall claiming to have the most unusual creatures in the world.
At first Lewis the Lion is intrigued by this poster
To gather the crowds in they they brought a man out who claimed to be the world’s hairiest man, a snake girl with a snake draped across her shoulders
Lewis the Lion sees the crowds gathering outside the Venice Beach Freak Show
and a two-headed turtle.
The audience get a taster of what’s inside like this two-headed turtle
He felt uneasy about it and reluctant to go in as he didn’t like to think of taking pleasure out of other people or creatures’ misfortune so in the end decided not to.
A sign for the Venice Beach Freak Show
Would you have visited this place? Why or why not?
Also catering or the tourists were many types of snack stalls and so Helen stopped to try an American hotdog with tomato and mustard sauce.
Helen has a traditional American hotdog
Other local specialities included fish tacos and funnel cake. He could also see some of the saltwater taffy that he had tried only a few days before on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
As he continued to stroll along, musicians tried to give their CDs away for free, desperate to be heard or to be spotted by local talent scouts. Not far away was Hollywood where aspiring actors would be in town trying to do the same. Lewis the Lion will tell you more about his trip to Hollywood in his next blog.
A view of Venice Beach from the pier
All in all, Lewis the Lion thoroughly enjoyed his time soaking up the atmosphere down on Venice Beach and to top it all off, he had a saunter along the pier to see some fishermen
Rules for the fishermen on the pier about which fish they shouldn’t catch
and even had his photo taken with some Californian policemen on horseback,
Lewis the Lion meets some mounted police on Venice Beach
before watching the sunset!
A beautiful sunset over Venice Beach
What a lucky lion!
Lewis the Lion loves to watch the setting sun over Venice Beach
