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Archive for the ‘Tours of Los Angeles’ Category
Looking East from the Eastern Building
Sunrise in Los Angeles
Thanks again to an Elite Adventure Tours friend who knew we would love this photograph of downtown Los Angeles’ Eastern Building taken early in the morning. This exquisite art deco building from 1930 has been repurposed into 147 spectacular apartments and is located on Broadway in the old Theater District. Since many of our private Los Angeles tours explore downtown Los Angeles we will regularly drive down Broadway and point out this beautiful torquoise terra cotta structure and prompt our guests to remember the many times they have seen it in movies and on television. It’s a star!
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Flying, Food and Fun at the Spitfire Grill
Private Los Angeles Tour Lands at Spitfire Grill
Santa Monica Airport was once Clover Field and a very large aircraft manufacturing facility (Douglas Aircraft: DC-3s, B-17s, B-47s). Today private luxury jets fly in and out of this beautiful airport by the sea. If you are there visiting the Museum of Flying and get hungry then we suggest the Spitfire Grill nearby. Terrific food and a wonderful aviation-themed restaurant to feed and entertain you.
Sitting in the patio enjoying a fine lunch with our private Los Angeles tour guests recently, we talked about the film Spitfire Grill, written by the owner of the restaurant, Lee David Zlotoff. The murals, painting and other artifacts inside and outside the cafe really speak to airplane lovers and make this a great place to go to talk about flying, food and film.
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Bimmerfest – Pasadena – May 18th
Touring Los Angeles in a BMW
Saturday, May 18th (9am-3pm), at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena (just north of Los Angeles), is the return of Bimmerfest, a festival of BMW automobiles and merchandise. At last count the celebration is expecting more than 1,700 cars and almost 4,200 BMW lovers and enthusiasts. With a number of competition categories for maintenance and customization, you will have an opportunity to see just about every model of BMW in every possible color and, of course, the latest models. And surprises! If there is anything you need for your baby bimmer you will be able to find everything here in one place at the Bimmerfest. We will likely have one or two of our Saturday private Los Angeles tours swing by as so many of our guests love their own BMWs, more so than a chance to see the cars of Hollywood and Beverly Hills celebrities. Go figure.
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A 60s Polynesian Bar Worth Visiting
Elite Adventure Tours Stops at Historic Bar
Imagine a bar where they do not serve beer or wine. The Tiki Ti ONLY serves tropical cocktails as they have been doing for more than 50 years. There are 92 different drinks on their menu so who needs beer or wine. Look over the menus from its earliest days and trace the evolution of island cocktails over all these years. Begun in 1961 by Ray Buhen, a master mixologist with roots at Don the Beachcomber, where all the other tiki bars faded into history the Tiki Ti flourished. Intimate (small) and quaint (locals, rum lovers, history buffs), the Tiki Ti always gets looks as we pass by on our private Los Angeles tour through Hollywood on the way to Beverly Hills, it is so tiny next to the hulking KCET television studios. Like the Frolic Room and the One-Eyed Gypsy, there are bars in this city with stories to tell and we not only like to help tell them but are happy to bring our guests in possibly to make a new story.
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Nothing Obscure about Santa Monica’s Camera Obscura
Ancient Camera Interests Private Los Angeles Tour Guests
Dating back to 1898, the Camera Obscura in Santa Monica allows guests to enjoy the same visual examination of the area that earlier beachgoers did. Perhaps the earliest of optical inventions, this type of device was employed by renaissance painters (Leonardo da Vinci) as well as philosophers (Aristotle), astronomers (Johannes Kepler) and scientists (Roger Bacon). The idea of the pinhole camera preceded lens technology and permitted projection of inverted images onto a surface so that solar eclipses could be safely watched or individuals observed without their knowledge. The Santa Monica Camera Obscura was moved from its original beach location to the Senior Center atop the palisades overlooking Santa Monica Bay in 1955 where it can be found today.
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Margarita? Los Angeles? El Coyote!
Where Do All the Actors Go for Margaritas?
We keep track of all the Best Of information that we can for places to eat, drink, dance, shop, stay and do in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Since many of our private Los Angeles tour guests are new to Los Angeles (even new to California) they are likely to ask us, “Where’s the best margarita around here?” The answer to anyone knowing the area as well as we do, even without a Best Of list, is El Coyote. This 80+ year old restaurant that we pass regularly on our custom luxury tour between Hollywood and the Original Farmers Market is a terrific place to enjoy great Mexican food and super margaritas. Frequented by entertainment industry people (it is just up the street from CBS Studios) the restaurant is notoriously known as the last place that Sharon Tate and her friends ate on the night they were attacked by the Manson family. Anyone visiting or new to Hollywood should make it a point to get to El Coyote right away for a great time and a great margarita.
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Sun Sets on a Private Los Angeles Tour
Great Photographs Mark Hollywood Tour
Among the many things we do so well on our private Los Angeles tours is capture great photographs. We know our guests love that we take these photos because we generally have the best camera in the van (prosumer digital SLR camera) and we take so many photographs every day that we really do know how and where (and when) to get the best shots of the area and of our guests. Each of them have extensive digital photo albums after their tour to share with family and friends. This photo was taken from a hilltop in Griffith Park on a perfectly clear evening looking out toward Santa Monica Bay. Palm Trees — so Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Do you know who else loves our photographs? Our followers at Pinterest.
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LitFest is in Pasadena this Weekend
Take a Private Los Angeles Tour to Pasadena
Do you love books? Authors, writing, performance, being outdoors on a nice Pasadena day? Then you do not want to miss the second annual LitFest Pasadena arriving on Saturday, May 11th beginning at 10:00 a.m. Unlike the humongous nearby book festivals that Los Angeles is famous for, this one is intimate and manageable and offers literary and imaginative attractions for your entire family. You can talk easily to local authors, see any and all panels and workshops, get your gourmet lunch and snacks quickly and easily, know the kids will be entertained and excited and it is easy to get there and park. Of course there will be publishers and booksellers manning booths of books but there will also be plenty of booksignings with authors. It is the day before Mothers Day so here is your chance to pick up the perfect reading material for mom. Expect music, theater and marionettes to compel your attention, too! We will making a stop there for our more literary-minded guests on their private Los Angeles tour. There is as much to see and do in Pasadena as Beverly Hills and Hollywood for those inclined to think beyond the Kardashians and Honey Boo-Boo.
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Private Tour Sees Ponies Near Los Angeles
Pony Express Seen on Private Los Angeles Tour
Our terrific tour guide, Jeff, a native of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, was taking his Terranea guests through the estates of Rolling Hills when they encountered this two-pony-power carriage at Kelly’s Corner, one of the greatest shake shops in southern California (that’s almost a secret — don’t tell anyone). The ponies were working hard for their feed back at the stable but Jeff tells us that the root beer floats here are to die for and the rest of the food is pretty darn good, too! It was too early in their tour for our luxury tour guests on their way to some grand sightseeing with Jeff in Hollywood and Beverly Hills to stop for lunch. We wonder if the residents of the Rolling Hills celebrity homes stop by Kelly’s Corner for a burger and shake?
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Stay Cool at Coolhaus
Our Private Los Angeles Tour Stops for Coolhaus
The warm weather is once again here in Los Angeles and will remain for months and months (thank goodness!). What do we like to offer our private Los Angeles tour guests on a fun and exciting day of wonderful sightseeing? Well, besides our usual on-board snacks and drinks or our cold/hot aromatic towel service, we try to stop at unique locations for special treats. If we do not pass the Coolhaus foodtruck (who we follow on Twitter and the web) then we head out to Culver City for a quick pit stop at their storefront at 8588 W. Washington Boulevard.
And what do we stop there to get? 21st Century ice cream sandwiches. Two fresh baked cookies to select and in between them a cold hard scoop of gourmet ice cream. It’s a cold, crunchy, chewy, sweet, mouthwatering delight. Our guests love us for stopping there and we love them for allowing us a chance to enjoy a Coolhaus treat while working. Happy and satisfied it is so much easier to regale our passengers with tales of Hollywood and show them celebrity homes in Beverly Hills.