Santa Monica Pier and other Santa Monica, CA Things to Do Tips

One of the most outstanding attractions on Santa Monica's ocean front is the pier, which as well as providing touristic entertainment, also lights up beautifully at night. The pier has appeared in many a movie, including the Titanic, Forrest Gump, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, the Sting, and a recent favourite of mine, Thank You for Not Smoking.

It's actually a combination of two piers, one a sewer pipe carrier built in 1909, and later a wider pier built in 1913 that brought the ocean side entertainment. It was almost destroyed in the 1960s, only for its destruction order to be rescinded in 1973, just in time for its appearance in The Sting.

Leave a Comment

Address: Ocean Avenue at Colorado
Website: http://www.santamonicapier.org/

Santa Moncica's beach and beachfront are it's main draw. It's distinctly cooler here compared to the city inland, and the location is relaxed enough to be popular with all kinds of people, from families, to teenagers, to jet-setting Englishmen too shy to even take their shoes off for a dip in the Pacific ocean.

Leave a Comment

A fine place to shop, eat, stroll, or just sit and watch the fascinating characters who exist here. Tanned supermodels; chinese businessmen practicing Tai-Chi; leather clad bikers sharing a joint; a Mexican guitarist playing for a dancing child; street artists; breakdancers and assorted crazies.

Leave a Comment

Address: 3rd. Street From Wilshire to Broadway
Directions: Take Wilshire towards the Pacific Ocean.

A gleaming white terracotta Art Deco building whose 50 meter stepped clock tower stands tall and proud above Santa Monica's relatively low skyline. I love modern architecture, and America has some of the greatest examples of Art Deco anywhere in the world. I don't think you'll find much about it in the tourist literature, as it's a commercial building, but I thought this was one of the most outstanding buildings in the city.

It's also located on the Santa Monica Boulevard, which I just had to see after the name was seared into my brain following a trip to Australia 12 years previously. I was forced to listen to that god damned song of Sheryl "one sheet to the wind" Crowe over and over again by the mischievous radio DJs of Melbourne.

Leave a Comment

Address: 225 Santa Monica Blvd