With its three miles of sandy seashore, dotted with palm timber on one facet and luxurious mountains on one other, the tiny metropolis of Santa Monica – solely 16 miles sq – is a quaint and stylish seashore city. The immediately recognizable pier marks the tip of Route 66, and the spill-over from edgy Venice Seashore to the south makes for a heady concoction of vacationers, seashore bums, and exhibitionists.
On any given day you would see tattooed scalps, monstrous muscle tissue and retirees engaged on their profession tans, amongst the omnipresent odor of weed. However regardless of pockets of eccentricity, Santa Monica is a brilliant and stylish Los Angeles-adjacent seashore city. It is right here you will discover loads of issues to do, with stylish cafes for individuals watching, upscale boutiques for designer procuring, and a few of the most costly actual property in Los Angeles County. These are the highest experiences in Santa Monica.
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Head to McCabe’s Guitar Store for an evening of stay music
Hidden at the back of a musical instrument store, this stay venue rose to fame within the Nineteen Sixties throughout the folks and blues revival. By day, McCabe’s sells obscure devices. By night time, it turns right into a intimate booze-free venue for 150 music aficionados. Legendary artists, from Joni Mitchell and John Lee Hooker to PJ Harvey, the Pixies, Tom Petty, and Elvis Costello, to call however a couple of, have carried out unplugged units right here and trendy greats proceed to cease by.
Study to trapeze on Santa Monica Pier
The historic pier is to Santa Monica what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris – overrun with vacationers however no go to is full with out experiencing it. Inbuilt 1909, the pier marks the final cease on Route 66. Extremely, the 130ft excessive Pacific Wheel is the one one in every of its form on a California pier. It is also the one solar-powered Ferris wheel on this planet – take a spin for panoramic views of town. Then, trip a rollercoaster, play carnival video games, and get launched into the sky by an aerialist at an aerial workshop with the resident trapeze college TSNY.
Descend the steep Santa Monica Stairs
This not-so-secret pathway, in between multi-million-dollar homes on Adelaide Drive, plummets by way of the timber and luxurious mountains of Santa Monica Canyon through 170 metal and picket stairs. Initially constructed within the Nineteen Twenties, so native youngsters had a faster route to high school, the steps now appeal to health junkies, who come right here to expertise the sharp 110ft elevation change and climb the calf-pounding stairway to heart-rate heaven. A lot to the dismay of the rich native residents, it has grow to be a wildly in style problem – round 1500 individuals exercise on the slim metal and picket stairs each weekend.
Watch a cult film at a classic theater
The Aero has been exhibiting motion pictures because the Forties on its single display. Initially constructed by the Douglas Plane Firm, the identify being a nod to the aerospace trade, it nonetheless has many authentic artwork deco options – together with the hanging neon signal and single seat ticket workplace within the entrance corridor. The film home has featured in lots of movies itself, together with Donnie Darko (2001), Sleepwalkers (1992), and Get Shorty (1995). One among its largest nights of the yr is the annual Nightfall-to-Daybreak Horrorthon, which takes place round Halloween and screens back-to-back scary motion pictures on 35mm movie.
Cease for a work-out present on the actual muscle seashore
Though the one in Venice will get extra consideration, the unique “muscle seashore” – an out of doors gymnasium with ropes, rings, and bars – really opened in Santa Monica in 1934. Venice’s model was named the “Weight Pen” earlier than it adopted its “Muscle Seashore Venice” moniker. Because of the busy public setting on Santa Monica Seashore, with pier and ocean within the background, it is grow to be extra of a theater than a gymnasium, with hundreds of spectators stopping by every day to take photos, as obliging resident beefcakes and gymnasts pose in between exercises.
Take a dip on the Annenberg Group Seashore Home
Initially a grandiose Nineteen Twenties five-acre seashore home constructed for legendary silent-era movie actress Marion Davies, the Annenberg Group Seashore Home is now a pool and recreation middle with seashore views and all types of actions for the general public. Play board video games and ping pong or attend a health class and hit a spherical of tennis right here. And, after all, do not miss taking a dip within the elaborately tiled swimming pool the place Davies swam with the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant. The grownup sundown swims are a specific spotlight.
Eat at Santa Monica’s finest retro eating places
Close to the tip of America’s most well-known drive is Mel’s Drive-In – a suitably retro burger joint housed in a Googie-style constructing designed by prolific “trendy” architects Armet and Davis. Inside is a step again in time – excessive chairs line the counter, patrons sip milkshakes at ’60s-style leather-based cubicles and a jukebox performs timeless rock ‘n’ roll tunes. In the meantime, two blocks from the seashore, and kitsch in equal measure, is The Galley – believed to be the oldest restaurant in Santa Monica and one of many first within the state. Dressed with nautical junk, pink fairy lights and props from the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty, this was as soon as a hangout spot for Thirties film stars Carole Lombard, Charles Laughton, Errol Flynn, and Edward G Robinson. The seafood and steak are surprisingly good for such a kitschy spot.
Folks watch on Third Road Promenade
The tree-lined Third Road Promenade is a uncommon factor in Southern California – a half-mile-long pedestrian-only highway. There are many eating places, bars, and shops to crawl, however the easiest way to absorb the environment is to seize a desk exterior and catch one of many many stay road performers, starting from musicians and comedians to breakdancers and magicians.
Browse one man’s life-long curios assortment
Half museum, half curiosity store, half prop rental firm, jAdis homes one man’s assortment of “touches of mankind’s genius”. Its doorways open at sure instances every week, so inquisitive of us can peruse flipbooks and plasma lights, classic Thirties bathing fits and peculiar scientific devices or whimsical steampunk contraptions. It additionally holds a reproduction of the robotic from Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie Metropolis.
Go to the Santa Monica Farmers Market
To satisfy the locals, head to one of many three weekly Santa Monica Farmers Markets, every attracting between 3000 and 10,000 guests. Native producers and crafters tout their natural fruits, greens, flowers, baked items, and seafood catches right here. There’s often free stay music to get pleasure from as you tuck into your bounty. Markets happen on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.
