Hollywood Boulevard is a Los Angeles cultural icon, with museums, landmarks and other Hollywood attractions that celebrate L.A.’s rich film and entertainment heritage. Whilst travelling around California we wanted to make a day trip to the iconic Hollywood with our 6-year-old Kidsetter. Hollywood has certainly cleaned up since the last visit I had which was 20 years ago, however, still need to be cautious.
Our Kidsetter is a fond Disney fan, so a visit the El Capitan Theatre was a must. El Capitan, dubbed “Hollywood’s First Home of Spoken Drama,” opened as a legitimate theater on May 3, 1926.
The El Capitan Hollywood Boulevard theater is located across from Hollywood & Highland and is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
The theatre shows first run and classic Disney movies, often with great movie-themed exhibits and pre-show entertainment.
As it was Halloween, our pre-show entertainment was Count Dracula playing the organ! You can imagine the explaining I had to do to a 6-year-old Kidsetter.
In staying true to the Halloween theme El Capitan Theatre were showing Tim Burton’s ‘A Nightmare before Christmas’. Probably a little too scary for our Kidsetter. Whoops !
After the movies we naturally had to indulge in an Incredible old school sundae at the infamous Ghirardelli Chocolate. As delicious as they were, we made the mistake of ordering 3 ! We should’ve ordered 1 to share as we could not finish them all, nor should we have. Still great fun to do.
Next, we sighted the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Filled with handprints, footprints and other prints of celebrities that include Jimmy Durante’s nose and Whoopi Goldberg’s dreadlocks, making it an important stop on a historical tour of Hollywood Boulevard. Unfortunately we weren’t able to visit inside as the 1927 Chinese-style movie theatre as it was barricaded for a special event.
We then wandered ‘The Walk of Fame’ which covers the sidewalks along Hollywood Boulevard between Gower and La Brea Streets. Created in 1958, The Walk of Fame is made up of hundreds of starred tiles with the names of celebrities who have made their mark in the entertainment industry.
We explained to our Kidsetter that the starred tiles were named after the people that star in the movies he sometimes watches and that the movies were filmed here in Hollywood.
We had recently visited Las Vegas and seen Cirque de Soliel’s performance ‘One’ which is a tribute to Michael Jackson. Our Kidsetter has been in awe of Michael Jackson ever since, so locating his star was a must !
A fun day immersed in movie culture and surrounded by stars that have made their dreams come true.
“It may be that those who do most, dream most.”
