Los Angeles in Four Days, Part III - Marilyn Monroe's Grave, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip

Our fourth day in Los Angeles consisted of random bits and bobs. We started the morning by catching a bus to Westwood Village Memorial Park to visit Marilyn Monroe's grave. People say that you need a car to go anywhere in America but that's not true at all! I think Americans are just so used to driving everywhere that other options have become suspicious for them. Los Angeles has a pretty good public transport system and I've always managed to get anywhere I wanted to go there using the metro and the bus.


Anyway, the main goal of the day was to find Marilyn Monroe's final resting place, which turned out to be easy since Westwood Village Memorial Park is really small. There are other famous people's graves there, too, such as Farrah Fawcett, Jack Lemmon, Truman Capote, Peggy Lee and Dean Martin. Since our visit, they've also buried Hugh Hefner in the crypt right next to Marilyn's (he bought it himself), which to me seems like posthumous harassment, to be honest. Some pictures below...

From Westwood, we caught another bus to Beverly Hills where we first had a look around Rodeo Drive and then walked to West Hollywood through some fancy area full of famous people's houses. No idea which one belonged to whom, and I somehow don't even care anymore. I was a lot more interested in these things when I first went to Los Angeles in 2010. Since then, I've come to realise that most celebrities are basically human wrecks battling with so many issues that I'd rather maintain at least some level of mental stability than have a house worth millions of dollars in a fancy area.

Christmas decorations on Rodeo Drive.

The famous Beverly Hills sign.

Our next destination was West Hollywood, the main community in Los Angeles to advocate for LGBTQ+ equality and rights. It's one of the biggest gay villages in the USA, which is also very visible in the streets, hotels, restaurants and companies in the area. There's also a non-stop party vibe going on - check it out!

Finally, before catching our bus back to Hollywood, we snapped some pictures of legendary clubs on the Sunset Strip...

The Rainbow Bar & Grill. 

The Whisky A Go Go, the legendary club where bands such as The Doors, Iggy & the Stooges, The Byrds, System of a Down, Guns 'N Roses, Van Halen, Mötley Crue and Linkin Park got started.

The Viper Room, which Johnny Depp owned partly when River Phoenix died of an overdose in front of it back in 1993.

So there you have it - yet another piece of Los Angeles! The next post will be all about Universal Studios so stay tuned for that!