The Getty

If you are ever in LA, I strongly recommend seeing the Getty. This museum is abolsutely gorgeous, both indoors and out. Inside people can listen to audio clips about different pieces of art, or if you are a lucky soul like myself, one of the museum workers will decide they want to teach you French and tell you all about French history attached to each piece of work. Here I learned the French pronounciation to cartoon.

The gardens in the Getty Museum are gorgeous. These gardens are hand designed down to the last flower. You can't really see it in the picture, but the waterfall goes down into a large pond where the shrubbery there twirls and twines in on itself. It is just breath taking.

Then take a walk outside to see the cactus gardens, but pay attention to the walls you walk past. You just might find a fossil in the wall! I did. The walls are scattered with little leaf and shell fossils.

Once you are up at the cactus gardens,

you can see almost all of LA. When you are there looking out, all of the buildings with terracota roofs are all part of UCLA. Let me tell you, it is a large campus but the view is just amazing.

Hearst Castle

If you thought that America had no castles, then guess again! Welcome to Hearst Castle. This place is four stories high, with at least four towers and the house alone is 11,ooo square feet. This does not include the mile or so drive up the hill, where it was said that Hearst let animals roam, to the house nor the outdoor pools and tennis courts.

Hearst was a man all about the antiquities. He loved to collect original artifacts from Greece as well as orginal texts. The picture to the right is the outdoor pool with real columns from Ancient Greece. Everything is either from Ancient Greece or was marble. All in all, abolustely gorgeous. The picture above is the side of the main house with its balcony outside the bedrooms. Guests did not stay inside the main building. Instead they had their own building that was completely furnished. Guests only ever needed to leave to get food from the dining room/kitchen. Otherwise the guests in the guest house would never have to leave.

The picture to the left is of Hearst's indoor pool. The wall, floor and even the inside of the pool is all hand crafted mosaic tile. The craziest thing of all though, is this isn't even the whole pool. The pool would not fit in the lense of my camera. Whereever there is an indentation, the pool actually continues a couple of feet into those crevaces. That's not all either! In these crooks are marble statues. This is another must see if you are ever in California.