We had a private tour booked for today and we were collected by our guide at 9 in the morning. The guide was Monty is an actor and comedian and runs tours during his spare time. We started with a visit of celebrity homes in Beverly Hills and Bel Air. There were too many to mention but they included Jeff Bezos, Beyonce, Elvis, Michael Jackson amongst others. Emily’s favourite was driving past Taylor Swift’s house, whereas my favourite was Nakatomi Towers from the original Die Hard.

Following that we drove past Santa Monica beach and spent more time at Venice beach which is just to the south. It was built to reflect Venice in Italy and even had canals instead of roads in the early 1900s. Venice beach was also made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger as it’s where he did a lot of his body building. There still exists a number of public gyms along the water front. We stopped here for morning tea and had some funnel cakes and corn dogs.

After lunch at Trejos Tacos we went up to Griffith Observatory for extensive views of the LA skyline and the famous Hollywood sign. We ended the tour with a walk along the Walk of Stars. We visited the Chinese theatre as well as the Dolby theatre where the Oscars are held every year.

The temperatures soared to over 30 during the day so we let the kids cool down in the hotel pool before heading out to dinner. We went to Mels Diner which is the first roller skate diner in the US and started the craze in the 60s.