If you go past Van Cleef & Arples, you've gone too far!

Choosing my hotel in Redondo Beach shows the limitations of booking accommodation in a city you don’t know from a distance of 10,000 miles.

The hotel was fine in itself, and Redondo Beach nice enough. But choosing somewhere in LA that is in between other places you want to visit does in fact leave you in the middle of nowhere. In both a literal and an existential sense in LA, you are either where it is at or you are not. Redondo is not and I felt a little sidelined from the heart of the Hollywood action.

So after two nights, I moved to Beverley Hills, and a hotel at the foot of Rodeo Drive. From the room I could see the Hollywood sign, the San Bernadino mountains still tinged with snow and approximately a million Stars and Stripes flags. I felt for the first time that yes, I was in America.

You know you’ve arrived in Beverley Hills when you ask for directions. My first walk out for dinner involved being on the receiving end of the following instruction from the Concierge… “walk straight past Tiffanys and take a left at Louis Vuitton. If you go by Van Cleef and Arpels, you gone too far.” Oh the glamour!