Sunshine in L.A. and you guessed it – more art!

Saturday 16 November 2019

I had set my alarm for 4.30am so as to get up on the train and race down for a shower before anyone and then be ready for breakfast at 5am. Both Mum and I enjoy a lovely breakfast and have a couple of hours to watch the sun rise as the train makes its way into Los Angeles. We arrive right on time at 8am and the first thing we notice is that it is hotter than anywhere else in the States we have been for the last three weeks. After freezing on Monday night in Chicago in sub-zero temperatures we now have high 20’s and I’m sweating as we wait for a cab to take us to our last hotel on this fantastic adventure. Despite the heat – it’s another cloudless lovely day – we have been very fortunate with the weather

Because it’s so early, we just wanted to drop our bags at the Hotel and check in later but they let us check in at 9am so we had a lovely cuppa in our room and planned the day out. First thing was to hang up the jacket! Thanks to a tip off from a parishioner the museum we had to see in LA was the Getty. We arranged for another cab to pick us up and we drove the forty minutes up into the hills. The driver said that if we gave him a time he would try and pick us up and drive us home, so after giving him a suitable time – we boarded a little shuttle train that goes up the hill to this vast set of beautifully designed buildings which house a breath-taking array of art from all over collected by J Paul Getty.

After a small introductory film we agreed on a meeting place and time and off we go to explore. It will come as no surprise to those who have been following the blog that I went straight away to the Impressionists! Followed up by 10th to 18th century European art of a religious focus. Wouldn’t you know it – but they had a special exhibition on the later years of Manet – I was again in heaven. I didn’t waste my time and tried to cover most of the major collections – but you would need more than one day to pay this museum true justice. Its location atop a hill overlooking LA led to glorious vistas from all angles and the outside garden was an deliberately set up art work in itself that would take many trips to explore but alas our time was up and after the compulsory visit to the gift shop – we were once again on the way back to our hotel. I endeavour to take a photo of the traffic. We are on the Interstate 40 – 6 lanes each way at its widest and the traffic is solid. I do close my eyes from time to time as I think our young driver thought we had an emergency to attend and was weaving in and out the traffic at a fast rate of knots!

However, we arrive safely back and we arrange for him to pick us up tomorrow – Sunday and be our driver for the day as we want to make the most of our last day and go to church – see the Peterson car museum and the La Brea Tar Pits before heading off to the airport for our 8.15pm flight home. I hope to get one more blog in to finish off this adventure but may have to wait til I’m back in Australia to post it.

The next five are all from the special Manet exhibition – simply stunning!