Visiting Venice Beach soon - questions (Santa Monica: homes, live in, gangs)

[ZenMaster2008]

Hey all,
I'm going to be checking out Venice beach soon for the first time since moving here. We just want to go check it out and walk around for awhile and get something to eat.

Would it be better for us to go on a weekend or weekday? (Mainly worried about not finding parking etc...)

Can anyone recommend any specific places to park or any good places to eat?

Any other general advice for my first visit?

[LuckyGem]

Weekend, but it's the off season. They've probably put up the dune barriers already.

Wait till spring, then you'll get the real Venice beach experience.

It will be a ghost town now.

[happ]

Originally Posted by LuckyGem

Weekend, but it's the off season. They've probably put up the dune barriers already.
Wait till spring, then you'll get the real Venice beach experience.

It will be a ghost town now.

Venice is hopping every weekend. It will be busy this weekend because of all the students on vacation. Weekends during winter are generally less crowded but it will be warm this weekend so keep that in mind. Since you live in metro LA you might want to visit during the week w/ no parking problems in the lots & spotty on the street.

BTW, what do you mean by "dune barriers"?

[Woof Woof Woof!]

Be sure to visit Abbot Kinney's in Venice. Joe's or Lilly's is nice for lunch. :-)

[BRinSM]

a good place to park is at the venice pier, which is at the very end of Washington. From there, you'll walk north along the boardwalks along checking out the sometimes odd homes that are directly on the beach. Plenty of places to eat in that area as well. C&O is one of my favorite italian places in the city. Muscle Beach and the main part of Venice with the graffiti and skating areas is about a 5-10 minute walk north of the pier. The boardwalk extends all the way to the border of Santa Monica, but its pretty much the same stuff up and down the entire boardwalk so you probably won't need to walk that far.

If you don't want to eat at C&O, there are dozens of places to choose from on the boardwalk. There is also an Islands on Washinton about 2 blocks from the beach.

As for when to go, if you go during the week this time of year, it is going to be fairly dead. Part of the allure of Venice is large amount of people walking around checking everything out. The weekends will have much more people, but since it has really started to cool off, parking shouldn't be too big of an issue. Plus, the lot that I had mentioned earlier is fairly large and if you get there early enough, you have no problems getting a spot.

I also meant to add that the sand berms are in fact up already. You may want to bring a snow sled with you if you have one, they are fun to use on the berm.

[AzianCalFullertonStudent]

The good thing about visiting Venice is you trend to meet a lot of eccentric people walking around.

[Sempergirl]

You're kidding! Venice Beach is Venice Beach no matter the day, time or season.
It's sordid, dirty, packed with weirdos too many T-shirt stores.

[fatmancomics]

Don't forget to go for a walk on the Canals. If you get through Venice too quick you can walk down to Santa Monica pier as well (about a half hour walk but it's the beach so it will be nice).

[mike8290]

Originally Posted by ZenMaster2008

Hey all,
I'm going to be checking out Venice beach soon for the first time since moving here. We just want to go check it out and walk around for awhile and get something to eat.

Would it be better for us to go on a weekend or weekday? (Mainly worried about not finding parking etc...)

Can anyone recommend any specific places to park or any good places to eat?

Any other general advice for my first visit?

Your definetly best going on the weekdays. Saturday and Sundays are packed. And the weekends is when all the punk kids and gangs go out and make a hoot and holler.

[Santa's Neighbor]

I was there today (late morning), I've never been on a weekend. It wasn't a ghost town, there were people walking around and hanging around, everything was open, the skateboard park was hopping, but otherwise maybe the number of things going on was probably fewer than what people talk about. I saw lots of available parking. I went intentionally on a weekday since I was on a bike and wanted to avoid big crowds, so it depends what you want- if you're a people-watcher primarily, go on a weekend- but if not, a weekday will probably be alive enough for the average person.

(edited to add, I just noticed now that this is a really old thread that was dug up by the previous poster... oh well, maybe someone else will be going! I was pretty sure I hadn't seen any dune barriers! ;-)