Here’s a nice, long walk you can take through a portion of the Los Angeles region — you’ll see some nature (well, the Los Angeles version of nature, which includes a river that they’ve paved over), some famous landmarks, and a rich neighborhood with some famous architects.
Here’s where you’ll be walking: you’ll be north and east of downtown Los Angeles.
Closer up on the relevant part of the map:
As you can see, you’ll be walking right along a river valley — oh, right, the river that they paved. Google says that this walk is 6.2 miles and will take you about 2 hours and a half. I think that sounds about right. When I did it, it probably took longer, cause I stopped to lay in the grass here and there.
Any case, you’re going to start in the south end of the route, and go north.
- Take the metro (A-line) to the South Pasadena station, and try not to let anyone kill you while you’re riding it.
- When you get off the metro, South Pasadena looks all cute and quaint and brick, so you could walk a bit around the shops. There’s also a library close by, but it’s pretty small. When you’re ready, walk west towards the Arroyo Seco Stables.
- Right behind the stables, you can join up with the “Lower Arroyo” trail. Arroyo means stream in Spanish. There is indeed a stream, it’s just running over concrete.
This “Little Arroyo” stream will flow into the main branch of the Los Angeles River further downstream, and that is also all concrete. As far as I know, it flows merrily over concrete all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
There are some side paths off the main trail where you can find water over actual mud and creek bottoms.
4. You’re going to walk and walk, northward, and eventually, as you get closer to Pasadena proper, you’re going to pass right under the Colorado Street bridge. You’ll already have passed a couple of other bridges by now. But the Colorado Street one is famous. I’m not totally sure why. Was it in a movie? Is it just very old?
5. A bit further north from this bridge, you will come upon the Rose Bowl. When I was there, a lot of kids participating in team sports were practicing on the field out front. This is where I lay in the grass and read.
6. When the sun started setting, that put a stop to my reading. I looked at Google Maps, and it told me there was a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright very close by. It’s called the Milliard House, after the original owners. It was also in the direction of the metro stop I wanted to get to, so I decided to pass by it. It was in a super fancy neighborhood called “Prospect Circle” right next door to the Rose Bowl. I believe one of the most treacherous and cruelest women I’ve ever met in my life mentioned that she lived right in this area. If that tells you anything. Any case, I walked by all the fancy homes (which are all designed by different famous architects, I think) and came across the the Frank Lloyd Wright one:
At least, this is what you can see of it from the road.
That marks the end of the walk, but from this point, you probably want to get back to a metro station. So you have to walk 30 minutes east to get to the closest one (Memorial Park station).
Yes, lucky you, you get to cross an impossible morass of highways on your way.
You also will pass yet another landmark — the Gamble House. This is the Gamble House of Procter and Gamble fame. So very rich people.
This house is open for ticketed tours. But twice a year, Pasadena has an “Art Night”, and one some of those Art Nights, the Gamble House opens its doors to visitors for free.
Just about a block further, you will pass the Pasadena Museum of History. And then you’ll cross all the highways, and then you’ll get to the Memorial Park metro station.
Just a note about Memorial Park metro station: there was a period when every single time I waited for the train there, something happened — like men shouting obscenities and vulgarities, and I honestly couldn’t tell if they were shouting them at me. So for a long period, I avoided this station entirely, and instead would walk about 10 minutes south and use the Del Mar station instead. Just in case you need to do the same.
mejshasan.com 