We made good time on the two-hour drive form San Diego north to the Los Angeles on reputedly the busiest stretch of Freeway in the world. As our guide repeated the slightest accident could give rise to long hold ups so today in bright sunshine we were very lucky. The Freeway is already 6 lanes wide in each direction with an extra lane reserved for those travelling in pool cars i.e. sharing a car so that there is more than just a driver in a vehicle; all part of the many schemes to cut down traffic congestion caused mainly by the port at San Diego and commuters to and from LA. Additionally they are widening the road by a further 4 lanes in both directions! This is being achieved by a series of flyovers and underpasses in an effort not to disrupt the traffic during construction, which has already taken a number of years.
Los Angeles meaning the Angels and nicknamed the City of Angels is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California and the second-most populous in the United States, after New York City, and has a land area of 469 square miles.
According to Wikipedia Los Angeles was founded in September 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of this war, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood.
You may remember that I said that Missions played a big role in the early development of what today is California and also accounts for LA’s nickname of the City of Angels. Wikipedia tells me that in 1771, a Franciscan friar named Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. In September 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores", founded "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula"; in English, "The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Porciúncula River". The Queen of Angels is an honour of the Virgin Mary. Today, this town is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles and the final stop on my tour of LA this afternoon so more on that in a later posting.
Our first destination this morning was the Beverly Hills, the home of so many Hollywood film stars. Today coaches are banned from touring through the streets lined by the grand mansions of these stars but you get a good feel for the area since each of the streets is lined with different trees. On the way we passed Fox Studios and the tall building you can see in the background is Fox Plaza from where Alan Rickman in Die Hard fell to his death – also see the photos of Fox Plaza.
The last picture is of the church where Frank Sinatra’s Funeral was held.
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