California Beaches: Venice & Santa Monica

Last Monday, we checked out the more chill side of Los Angeles: its beaches. Our hotel was just minutes from Venice Beach and Santa Monica, so we decided to check out one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Tom had a conference call for a freelance project at 3:00 PST, so we came back to the hotel in-between beaches.

Venice Beach
Venice Beach is chill and edgy at the same time. There is a lot of local color here - lots of artists, some homeless folks, skaters, and people posing as doctors to sell medicinal marijuana. This is the beach known for its skate parks and graffiti, and it has a ton of character! There's a great boardwalk that goes for at least a mile or two - shops & restaurants on one side, beach on the other. We walked all the way to the end and then ate lunch at the Fig Tree Cafe - voted best restaurant on the boardwalk. It was a long, leisurely, and delicious lunch, and it was truly a Californian meal.

After lunch, we walked around a bit more, went down to the beach, and watched some skateboarders in the skate park. Then, it was time to head back to our hotel for Tom's conference call.

Santa Monica
In the late afternoon, we headed to the more polished Santa Monica Beach. Both beaches we saw were beautiful, but this one was a little more mainstream. Not quite so colorful, but with a neat boardwalk & mini amusement park. There's a long cliff walk of sorts above the beach that you can follow down over the Pacific Coast Highway to the beach and up to the boardwalk.

Santa Monica also has a great spot called the 3rd Street Promenade - an outdoor mall for foot traffic only. We walked up to this from the beach and did some window shopping. Very cool!

After all this walking and exploration, we had a cheap dinner at Panera and headed back to our hotel for the night.

Up next: up the coast to beautiful Santa Barbara!