After landing at LAX last weekend, my friend picked me up and drove us to Venice for breakfast. I had no clue LAX was located so close to everything. It took us about 15 minutes to get from LAX to Venice which was awesome… no long road trip to get to the beach!
Venice is a residential neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. It is known for it’s canals (seen in many movies), beaches, and eccentric residents and beach-goers. If you’re into people watching, Venice Beach is the place to go! Venice has a 2.5 mile pedestrian only promenade that features artists, vendors, street performers, fortune tellers… anything and everything you can thing of. Venice is also known for its Venice Beach Freakshow. While we didn’t go inside, we did see the Bearded Lady walking around. And honestly, she wasn’t the weirdest person on the boardwalk. If you want to get an inside look, there is (was, not sure if it’s still on the air) a reality show on AMC called “Freakshow” about the Venice Beach Freakshow. Muscle Beach is another well known spot on Venice Beach. While the original Muscle Beach was in Santa Monica (founded in 1934), the Venice location opened 18 years after and was named “Muscle Beach Venice” to differentiate it from the original location.
After walking up and down the promenade, we stopped at Figtree’s Cafe and Grill for some breakfast. It is definitely worth a stop if you are ever on the Venice Beach Boardwalk. We sat at a table outside with the view of the boardwalk and beach. It was pretty overcast that morning (it wind up raining that afternoon), but it was still nice to sit outside for my first meal of the trip.
I noticed there were a lot of running groups on the boardwalk that morning. Not a bad place to workout especially since Venice Beach seems to have everything. Not only do you have Muscle Beach, but I saw people playing basketball, skateboarding, running, biking, surfing, playing paddle tennis… and that is not even everything Venice Beach has to offer! I love how active everything is in California, especially in Venice.
Not far up the beach is Santa Monica. You can walk from one beach to the other using the pedestrian promenade which I hear is about a 45-60 minute walk from one pier to the other. We didn’t plan on going to Santa Monica till later that weekend so we didn’t make the trek up there but we could see the Santa Monica Pier from our breakfast spot.
I love how each beach-town has it’s own feel and personality. Venice is definitely unique which makes it worth a trip!
What is your favorite thing about Venice Beach?
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From your photos Venice Beach looks really cool, I like all of the bright pops of colour against the sand and I love, love the first picture; imagine living in one of those houses and hopping in your little boat. So lovely!
I've never been to Venuce Beach but it looks like such a fun place!
I love the canals best although I'm sure people watching would be quite fun as well 🙂
The Venice Canals are pretty cool! After my friend took me there I realized that they filmed the movie "Valentine's Day" (with Aston Kutcher) there! Pretty cool to see in person!
It's really fun and crazy how different it is from its neighboring beaches like Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach. It reminds me of Austin… with a beach and not as clean lol
That Canals are so pretty. I remember watching Valentine's Day with Aston Kutcher and thinking, oh those houses are cool! And then getting to see them in real life 🙂
I love Venice! Thanks for bringing me back there through your photos! I never got to see the canals when I was there 🙁 Next time!
Venice Beach looks awesome! I love all the street art. I can see why there were so many people working out there — would be a great place for a run!
Great photos! So vibrant and lively, really captures Venice!
Thanks Love! Had such a great time! Let's do it again!
Love your photos of Venice Beach! I have some friends living in LA. At first I never had a desire to visit LA, but posts like this (plus the fact that I would love to visit my friends) are showing me just how diverse the area is! Definitely wouldn't mind a trip to explore 🙂
Haha! The Bruce Lee graffiti! The only time I've been in LA was when I lived with my grandparents for the first 3 years of my life. Aka I've basically never been there. The street art definitely gives it some personality! Would love to see more neighborhoods!!
It really is diverse! Each town has it's own feel… there's a town for everyone! Honestly, I'm not a huge LA fan either and when I went in the past, we mostly hung out in the OC. But since my friend recently moved there, I decided to make a trip and I'm so glad she took me around to all the different parts of the city.
Lol… you've lived in LA longer than I have 😉 ha! I love street art… Venice definitely has it's fair share of it too!
I love Venice! We loved renting bikes and cruising down the beach! Such a vibrant community.