Back in October last year I was lucky enough to go on a fantastic DTour around the US and Canada, staying in DoubleTree by Hilton hotels and living it up in style in 7 different cities, starting on the west coast in California, popping into Canada briefly and ending up in the Big Apple, NYC, on the east coast.

          Stop no. 2 on this trip of a lifetime was waterfront Hotel Maya in Long Beach. I am telling you – I could seriously get used to seeing those mind-blowing sunrises reflecting off the calm ocean, interrupted only by the odd silhouette of a palm tree… While I was there I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go to nearby Los Angeles and see what all the fuss was about. After exploring the rather tacky area around Hollywood Boulevard and Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, I took an unashamedly touristy ‘Movie Stars Homes Tour’ up into Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and Hollywood. Despite all my expectations and morals about everyone’s right to privacy, blah blah blah, I had a whale of a time, with the wind in my hair, driving along pristine palm-tree lined streets and admiring endless mansions and million-dollar homes. I loved it! And I’m not even embarrassed to admit it. What really made the tour was the fact that the driver was English and his quips and jokes were just my type of humour, something I was missing during my month of travel abroad!

           Check out my full blog post about my trip to LA here: ‘DTour Part 3: House-hunting in Hollywood‘. This postcard brings back such good memories and it was also the last time I was in hot, summer, sun-dress weather before the winter kicked in. Pretty pretty please can we fast-forward to the summer please??