On our last full day in LA we paid a visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum.
The Petersen Automotive Museum is one of the largest motor museums in the World and has over 100 vehicles on display in the main section of the museum. However, there is also a vault in the basement of the museum which contains just as many vehicles; many of which will never go on display in the main section of the museum.
Standard entry to the museum is $16 for adults, but we decided to pay extra to do the Extend Vault Tour so we could visit the vault, and this was an additional $30 each. The Extend Vault Tour is a guided tour that lasts around 2 hours and you aren’t allowed to take any photos inside.
We got an Uber to the museum which is located on Wilshire Boulevard. The building that the museum is housed in is pretty special.
We bought our tickets online in advance via the Petersen Automotive Museum website, so once we arrived we got checked in and we had some time to look around the main part of the museum before our tour was due to start. You are allowed to take photos in this part of the museum.
They have a lot of vehicles from movies on display include one of the bikes from Tron, a DeLorean from Back To The Future, the Landspeeder from Star Wars and a whole load of Batmobiles.
I think between visiting the Warner Bros. Studio Tour and the Petersen Automotive Museum, I’ve now seen most of the Batmobiles, which is pretty cool!
I believe they made 6 Batpods for The Dark Knight trilogy (but don’t quote me on that one!) and I saw 2 of them on this trip. And it was nice to see this one in a well-lit room so I could really appreciate all the details!
Then it was time for the Extend Vault Tour. I’d say there were around 15 people in our group and the tour ended up lasting over an hour because our guide was really informative and made sure he told us something about every car in the vault. Some of the highlights for me was seeing the first Ferarri ever built and the campervan from the movie Little Miss Sunshine!
I would recommend doing the Extend Vault Tour is you are into your cars. The only thing I would say though is I found it really hard to stand up for over 2 hours and my legs were absolutely killing me after the tour, so if you do have problems with standing up for long periods of time, maybe give this a miss.
We were both feeling pretty hungry after our time at the museum, and after consulting Google Maps we realised that there was a branch of The Counter close by. So obviously we went there for lunch! Yes, twice in one trip. We just love it so much and we have to make the most of it when we can. Plus, we ordered completely different burgers to the last time so really it was a completely different meal!
On our way to The Counter we walked past this famous art installation at the LACMA called Urban Light. It consists of 202 street lamps arranged in a grid.
After lunch, we decided to walk to The Grove as this was pretty close by. To get there, we walked through Hancock Park and saw the La Brea Tar Pits, which was pretty weird!
The Grove is essentially just a shopping centre. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s really pretty, but if you aren’t really into shopping it’s not that special. Next to The Grove is the Farmers Market which I much preferred visiting.
The Farmer Market has been open since 1934 and it is full of little independent shops and food stalls. I would have loved to have spent more time at the Farmers Market but unfortunately, my hip was in a lot of pain thanks to standing up for over 2 hours straight, so we ended up getting an Uber back to the hotel.
As I say, this was our last full day in LA, and once we were back at the hotel we started packing our suitcases ready to fly to Las Vegas the next day!
I have to say, LA took me completely by surprise and I ended up enjoying it so much more than I expected to. I feel like we managed to fit a lot into our 4 days in LA, but I definitely feel like there’s still a lot I want to do there and I would love to return someday. Even if it’s just to go to Disneyland!