Great Gardens: Getty Villa!

Well, my vacation has finally come to an end.  I'm not too sad about it since I was turning into a useless lump (let's be clear... a useless happy lump) and it is, oddly enough, kind of nice to be back in the hospital seeing patients again.  That's not to say that I didn't have the greatest time with my sister while she was here with the big added bonus of finally meeting her new boyfriend who is a born and bred New Yorker.  Visitors from other great cities (NYC is great) have a tendency to be somewhat biased against LA for some reason.  Is the smog? the traffic? the gang violence? Skid Row?  Um, maybe...  So how to go about showing someone from another great city that LA is quite great too?  

The New Yorkers in question: Andrea (converted NY-er) & Will.  And their horrified new friend...

Take them to places like the Getty Villa!  (Among other things like eating lots of delicious burgers).

View of the Villa from the Outer Peristyle

For those of you new to this Getty business, J. Paul Getty was a very rich man who built two namesake museums in LA.  One of them ("The Getty Center"), off the 405 near Westwood, is a famous architectural structure with a wide range of art, mostly European and rotating special exhibits.  It also has a lovely garden in the back and because it sits way up on a hill, has a great view of Los Angeles and, on a clear day, the ocean.  This one is fairly well known, and I personally have been there lots of times.

The Getty Villa is less well known and frequented, mostly I think because they require tickets.  These tickets are free and easy to obtain online (click and print, basically), but they require advanced planning since there are a set number and Angelenos are non-commital and all.  The Getty Villa is in Malibu (actually, technically the Palisades), off PCH just north of Sunset, that wonderful little beginners' surf spot.  It is built to resemble an ancient Roman villa, and in keeping with the theme, the art is all ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan.  Even after being in LA for 12 years now, this past week was my first time visiting -- I never had tickets!

Naked baby vintners on a sarcophagus

Let me tell you, it was amazing!  I loved it!  Awesome ancient Greek/Roman art aside -- which let's be honest is pretty fascinating even to the fairly history-indifferent folks -- the gardens themselves are such a calming place to be.  The exact type of place that makes you forget all the smog, highways, and other LA downers, whether you live here or not.

So without further ado...  more pictures!

Happy New Yorkers in the herb garden

Well-manicured edges

That is a terribly cute deer

Inner Peristyle... look at that great use of foliage!

Nice shoes, Hermes!

My favorite touchable plant: Lambs Ear

Is this not relaxing???!

My recommendation is that you spend at least a solid half day there, especially if you like art.  Despite the apparent small size of the museum, there is a lot of art packed in there and after visiting the gardens, we did not even make it through the whole museum.  

As mentioned before, tickets are free.  Parking is $15 and they have a nice little cafe with decent reasonably priced food.  I think you will like it!

While I'm still dreaming of my vacation, here's the track of the day, by the lovely Rodrigo y Gabriela.  I have mini-crushes on them both and their mad guitar skills.  I saw them last year at the Bowl and again this year with my sister...  we love them!