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The streets surrounding the PDC are flanked with design stores where you can actually buy – and not just look at (as in the PDC) – that chintz sofa or Eames chair. Best explored on foot, the district is filled with cutting-edge art galleries, trendy restaurants, and cafés where you can relax over latte.

This small museum is dedicated to showcasing handicrafts and folk art from around the world. The brainchild of folk art collector Edith Wyle, it was originally launched in 1965 as “The Egg and The Eye,” a gallery space and omelet restaurant. Apart from its changing exhibits, which reflect the multi-layered culture of Southern California, CAFAM is best known for its annual International Festival of Masks held in October.

Though it has certainly seen better days, Melrose Avenue (see Melrose Trading Post) is still a haven for Hollywood hipsters and the place to stock up on vintage threads, provocative fashions, and unusual gift items. Weekend afternoons are prime time for soaking up the scene, preferably from a table at an outdoor café, delicious ice-cold frappuccino in hand.

The 130 showrooms of this vast complex display the finest in furniture, fabrics, lighting, and accessories. A contemporary 1975 design by Cesar Pelli, the most striking feature of the PDC is the gleaming blue glass façade, which has earned it the nickname “The Blue Whale.” The clover-green addition dates from 1988. On the plaza behind the PDC is a branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art , showcasing architecture and design.

You won’t find mammoths, saber-toothed cats, or dire wolves in any zoo, but they are the stars of this museum offering a look at life in LA during the last Ice Age thousands of years ago. Since 1906, excavations at the pits adjacent to the museum have yielded more than one million fossilized bones of about 450 species, from insects to birds and mammals. Many are now on display at the museum, which also houses a glass-walled laboratory where paleontologists may be seen working. Outside the museum, life-size replicas of mammoths trapped in muck dramatize the ghastly fate of Los Angeles’s prehistoric denizens.

Sunset Strip has been LA’s nocturnal playground since the 1920s and is the most history-laden section of the 25-mile (40-km) Sunset Boulevard. Stars, starlets, wannabes, and those that like to be around them are still drawn to landmarks old and new, including the Chateau Marmont, the Whisky a Go-Go, the Mondrian Hotel with its exclusive Sky Bar, and Johnny Depp’s music club, the Viper Room.