After you’re done touring this city, go relax at some of these high-end spas where you can be sure to forget all your worries. Make sure to make reservations quickly and of course—make sure to name drop. Names, looks and money carry a lot of weight in this town.   The Beverly Hills Hotel Spa is a one-of-a-kind spa experience. Make sure to book early as it tends to fill up rather quickly with celebrities. Enjoy a private poolside cabana, providing outdoor spa services and feel the sun on your …More

Everyone wants to see the rich and famous. After all, spotting celebrities is probably one of the biggest draws to coming to Los Angeles in the first place. So where does one go to see their houses, albeit from afar? There are several tour companies to pick from. Even people who couldn’t care less about celebrities will appreciate the architecture and designs of the beautiful mansions shown on the tour.   Anyone familiar with TMZ (celebrity gossip brand) will appreciate the TMZ Tour. This is the …More

Los Angeles is by nature the most celebrity conscious city on the planet. Houses of worship are, of course, supposed to be above such matters. Still, the unvarnished truth is that, as chronicled by historian Neal Gabler and others, Los Angeles's Jewish houses of worship and the entertainment business have grown up together. Famous, rich and powerful people want to pray, too. Below are a few of the places where they do just that.   Temple Israel of Hollywood: This deceptively modest looking synagogue, …More

Everyone is familiar with Hollywood, but not everyone knows of a cute town only 15 minutes from downtown Hollywood—Los Feliz. It’s really the best of both words—minutes from all the attractions of downtown Hollywood and also surrounded by nature. Lots of boutiques, bohemian cafes and other hangouts are on Hillhurst Avenue and Vermont Avenue. Alcove Cave & Bakery is one of the many cafes in the area. Housed in two of the oldest houses in Los Feliz, this café contains a lot …More

As the American city with the second largest concentration of Jews, the sprawling megalopolis we know as greater Los Angeles boasts a number of historically Jewish neighborhoods. Even if Jewish culture is often hard to spot among the areas’ many other ethnic and religious influences, Jews remain an enormously important group in the City of Angels. Join us as we take a trip through the Jewish neighborhoods of Los Angeles, moving from the inland east to the coastal west. Boyle Heights. Thanks to the racist …More

When you think about performing artists in Los Angeles, you probably think of actors and rock musicians. Think again. Los Angeles has more than its share of world-class performers in the rarefied but still vital fields of opera, serious music, and dance. Since World War II, when countless musical talents fled Hitler only to find themselves living and working in Los Angeles, our city has had a proud tradition in music. Even so, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has, in the opinion of many observers, emerged in recent …More

What city is the capital of comedy? New York has a certain energy but L.A. has the edge in terms of sheer numbers of resident funny people. Woody Allen and Jon Stewart might steadfastly refuse to move west, but they don't have all that much company. Smack dab in the center of the Sunset Strip, the Comedy Store is L.A.'s most famous comedy club. Think of a stand-up from the last 40 years and, odds are, they have performed there. Steve Martin, Gary Shandling, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Richard …More

When the long-running Sunset Junction Street Fair in Silverlake was cancelled in 2011 due to a pay dispute, the outcry could be heard from the beach to the valleys to the inland deserts of greater Los Angeles. L.A. is a city that loves its festivals. The only problem in giving you a rundown is: where to begin? One of the most distinctive aspects of our megalopolis is its astonishing cultural diversity. Probably the single biggest ethnic event is Nisei Week, celebrating the city's very large and influential …More

Anyone who informs you that Los Angeles is nothing but a cultural wasteland is someone whose research hasn't gone beyond old Woody Allen movies. Greater L.A. houses numerous first class museums covering a dazzling array of topics. Moreover, as "Pacific Standard Time" -- the mammoth October 2011 through April 2012 cross-museum mega-exhibit/art event proves -- few cities' museums are as much on the cutting as those in the City of Angels. Los Angeles is home to innumerable galleries located in storefronts in too …More

The tradition of atmospheric, deliriously hardboiled crime films and novels, dubbed film noir (or "black film," by the upstart French film critics of the late 1950s), remains more popular than ever six decades after the genre's heyday. No city on the planet is more connected to this literary and cinematic tradition than Los Angeles. Just ask the creators of the video game, "L.A. Noire." L.A. is the home of Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe and the setting of both the book and classic film versions of James M. …More

"They say it never rains in Southern California...it pours, man it pours," sang Albert Hammond back in 1972, and nobody disagreed. Los Angeles is a place where you can easily go many months without making contact with a single drop of precipitation, only to find yourself suddenly soaked after getting stuck in a seemingly everlasting October-through May downpour. If you happen to be a tourist who came dreaming of sultry days on the beach, this can be a downright upsetting state of affairs. But while you need to be …More

If there's one thing that people who've never lived in the Los Angeles area seem unable to grasp, it's how massively enormous it is and just how long it takes to get from place to place. We understand the confusion. L.A. might be comparable in many ways to such urban behemoths as New York and Chicago but, geographically speaking, it couldn't be more different. Writer Dorothy Parker called L.A. "72 suburbs in search of a city." There is no real hub or center to it. Still, it is possible to grasp the place if you …More