Talking about Los Angeles, it's pointless to find a concise cinematic image – it's a city that, when it disappears, can be reconstructed from the hundreds of miles of footage shot here. When you come here, you put it together, like a mosaic, from the many movies you've seen. Paradoxically, you'll be surprised to find that you've been on a tour of Los Angeles more than once. The city itself is also largely seen by the traveler through glimpses of movie footage: on a tour of Los Angeles, and just getting around, you often can't get around without a car.
It used to be said of Los Angeles that it's thirty suburbs searching for a center, and although it's now dominated by the skyscrapers of downtown, each neighborhood city retains its own face. A walk through L.A. can take you not only to Beverly Hills with its palm trees and exorbitant prices, or to the HOLLYWOOD sign on the hills, but also to an entire street of vintage stores, to one of the first movie theaters in the United States, to a farmer's market, to an unsafe Mexican neighborhood, and to an authentic Chinese one. Don't be afraid to see the old, grimy, one-story Los Angeles – here you'll come closer to unraveling the phenomenon of this place that had less than fifty residents three centuries ago.
Tours of Los Angeles are not uncommon. Experienced guides are ready to show you everything from the oldest building in town to the stores where the stars buy their clothes, from the hall where the mayor meets the citizens to the giant observatory-museum – in short, to immerse you in the cycle of fashion, movies, art, fame – the eternal lures that draw dreamers and entrepreneurs to Los Angeles. The guide may even offer to make a little video of your walk (have you forgotten where you are?).
Los Angeles is a city where your itinerary will be determined, if not by your cinematic taste, then by your ambition, because only on the spot will you fully feel where the demons of the City of Angels reside.
