"Theme Parks" Hollywood Travelogue by colin_bramso

Fairy Castle

The whole place is almost like being in a Disney movie. The beautiful castles are quite something - imagine being an architect asked to create something like this!

Paddle Steamer

This goes way beyond the cardboard and plywood fake props of a movie. The illusion you see on film has been transformed into something that's very real - you can go into and walk around the castles, go sailing on a Mississippi paddle steamer. They're real and they work!

Pirate ship

The attention to detail on a project the size of Disneyland is quite astonishing. This pirate ship for example was superb, beautifully designed and built with wonderful decoration. In one sense building Disneyland must have been just another huge building project, but the people must have had a lot of fun too, creating such beautiful things.

I also liked the themed areas as much as the individual items. Lovely areas, again beautifully designed, built and decorated. This is the entrance to the Roaring '20's area.

Disneyland is on my list of places I wish everyone could visit.

If you're interested in the American West depicted in cowboy movies, you'll find the next chapter interesting...

The old West.

KNOTTS BERRY FARM

We didn't know of Knotts Berry Farm before we arrived in Hollywood, but found it through some brochures in the hotel lobby. I actually preferred it to Disneyland because it is a re-creation of the frontier days in the American west, which is a period in history which interests me. Like Disneyland it is superbly well done, not just copying the west as we know it from cowboy films but accurate according to the books I have about that period.

The actors wandering about in their authentic-looking costumes add to the feeling that you're actually back in the old west!

Walking amongst the wooden buildings on the unpaved streets of the town, especially in the hot mid-day sun, is just how it must have been back in the late 1800's.