Culture of Beverly Hills. Places to visit - old town, temples, theaters, museums and palaces

Almost everyone’s first association about Beverly Hills would be luxurious estates, expensive cars, prestigious restaurants and hotels, trendy boutiques, and large shopping centers. While walking in the city, tourists will often see limos passing by or even see famous movie actors and musicians who walk leisurely or dine in a café. Despite the fact that a vacation in Beverly Hills is not a cheap one, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit this city every year. Sunset Boulevard is one of the best places to start your acquaintance with the city. A walk on the boulevard will bring guests of the city to the Old Hollywood area. There are beautiful office buildings of internationally famous companies and several attractive restaurants in this part of Beverly Hills. West Hollywood neighborhood is a way more interesting place to explore. It is famous for numerous restaurants, shopping centers, and boutiques.

To the south of Sunset Boulevard, there is the most famous quarter in Beverly Hills, the so-called Golden Triangle that is formed by three streets - Rodeo Drive, Wilshire Boulevard, and Santa Monica Boulevard. The majority of trendy boutiques, Hollywood studios, and museums are open inside this triangle. Tourists will be amazed by numerous eye-catching mansions, each of which can be safely called a true masterpiece of architectural art. Tourists interested in museums will find many interesting venues in nearby Los Angeles. For example, they should not forget to attend an excursion in the J. Paul Getty Museum, while fans of art will be amazed to see paintings available in local picture galleries. For example, the Los Angeles Art Museum exhibits as many as 150,000 works by famous painters.

There is one more famous cultural venue nearby - The Petersen Automotive Museum, the exhibition of which includes more than 200 luxurious vehicles. The La Brea Tar Pits is an excellent place to see unique archeological findings. Many precious fossils were discovered in tar pits, which helped these relics to survive in a very good condition. Farmers Market has also become a true landmark of Beverly Hills. Located not far from Fairfax Avenue, the market appeared in the 30s of the previous century. Nowadays, numerous tourists visit the market in order not only purchase the best food in the city but also to admire the inimitable style of old buildings. There are more than a hundred stalls on the market that offer different types of cheese, homemade sausages, pastries, and unforgettable desserts. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

Fans of TV will find it incredibly interesting to visit the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills. Formerly known as the Museum of TV and Radio, the venue exhibits items that were used as footage for more than 140,000 episodes of old TV shows! Costumes, decorations, set pieces, and numerous memorabilia are just a small part of the museum's exhibition. There are also screens that show various TV shows on demand, from forgotten black-and-white soap operas to 80s sitcoms. Moreover, there are live panel discussions, during which visitors of the museum can meet TV directors, actors, screenwriters, and more.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the internationally known organization that has gained wide recognition because of the Academy Awards, which are better known as the Oscars. Every tourist in Beverly Hills can feel a connection to the cinema world if they visit the Academy’s headquarter on Wilshire Boulevard. The Grand Lobby is free to enter, and there are periodic movie screenings and other events that are better to check in advance.

Beverly Hills City Hall remains one of the most popular and easily recognized landmarks of the city. The building, which is a great example of the Spanish Renaissance style, is often featured in various films and TV shows. Many tourists come to see the tiled dome and magnificent cupola of the city hall. Initially built in 1932, it was completely renovated in 1982. In 1990, Beverly Hills City Hall got expanded and the Civic Center in a fitting architectural style was added to it.

You cannot ignore The Hollywood Museum, where the secrets of cinema and filming movies are told. You can even see the equipment with which well-known filmmakers worked, personal belongings of famous actors and actresses – in general, everything connected with the movie (and in Beverly Hills is difficult to find something that is not related to cinema at all). There is in the city, Madame Tussauds Hollywood. Here among the wax figures you can find Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Eminem, Selena Gomez, Julia Roberts, and even superheroes from the Marvel comics – Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man.

Also in the city you can find the interesting Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, with its special atmosphere of the 18th century fair. Everything you can find among the exhibits here is frightening, but at the same time people find it pretty fascinating: the skull, optical illusions, blood, and giants. There is a completely unusual museum in the city, called the Museum of Death. Guys who do things for the thrill of it visit this place. Among the exhibits are not the most pleasant things: photos with scenes of crimes and suicides, autopsies, funeral paraphernalia, drawings of serial killers. Faint-hearted people should definitely not visit this place, only those who are fascinated by the “sad romance” – surely, this unique place should not be missed.

Craft and Folk Art Museum ought to be visited in order to get acquainted with the works of art of local artists. In addition, you can visit it due to the fact that the beautiful building in which the museum is located attracts attention to itself. There are two more interesting museums in the city – the Museum of Tolerance and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. In each of them you will be told about the Holocaust and what atrocities were applied to people who are different from others, and, of course, the goal is to avoid it from happening again.

The hidden treasure of Beverly Hills can be found while walking along the Elden Way. Here is located the Virginia Robinson Gardens – a beautiful park suitable for walking and enjoying amazing flowers. The garden has many levels, each of which has interesting sculptures, plants, fountains, exotic birds, trees and flowers which are very rare. Not all residents are aware of the existence of this place. It should also be noted that there is a church in the city called All Saints’ Episcopal Church, and is also worth a visit.