Griffith Observatory
The one place from which you see the Hollywood sign, downtown and the ocean at once.
Duration
1 hr 30 min – 2 hrs 30 min
Best time
An hour before sunset
Open
Closed on Monday
Entry price
Free
Griffith J. Griffith left the land and the money for the observatory to the city in 1919 on one condition: that admission be free in perpetuity. It has been since it opened in 1935, and that makes it the most democratic place in Los Angeles.
It sits on the southern flank of Mount Hollywood at three hundred and forty metres, in a park of seventeen hundred hectares — five times Central Park. The terraces give you the whole Los Angeles basin: downtown, the gap through to Santa Monica, the ocean in clear weather, and the Hollywood sign on the ridge to the west.
Getting there
DASH Observatory bus from Vermont/Sunset metro station, at weekends and late in the day. By car, parking on the access road is charged hourly and fills from four o'clock.
Rules on site
Closed on Mondays, unlike the park. Parking is the real problem: the access road is a solid queue from four o'clock to sunset, and the shuttle avoids the question entirely.