This video is a deep dive into the Venice canal area of Venice beach which is filled with history and beautiful scenic routes

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Venice Beach Area:

Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. Known for its intricate network of canals that are surrounded by luxurious houses, a very wide beach, and a two-and-a-half-mile Ocean Front Walk, Venice has become one of the most popular touristic hotspots when people are visiting the Los Angeles area. Known as "a cultural hub for its eccentricities", many of the walls of this area have intricate artwork and walking on the main Ocean front walk is always a spectacle in itself with all the performers, stores, sport activities and just a general hip and cool vibe. Like much of the rest of coastal southern California, Venice has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, with cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers. Temperatures are moderate all year, and the neighborhood boasts over 300 sunshine days per year. With such good weather and plenty of things to do Venice is truly one of a kind.

Venice Canals:

The Venice Canal Historic District is noteworthy for possessing man-made wetland canals which were built in 1905 by developer Abbot Kinney as part of his Venice of America. Kinney sought to recreate the appearance and feel of Venice, Italy. Another set of canals were built south of the Venice Canals, originally known as the New Amsterdam Canals. Originally the canals were lit at night and had gondoliers which drew widespread publicity and helped sell lots in the development, but by the 1920s, with cars quickly gaining popularity, the canals were viewed by many as outdated, and as a result a number of canals were filled in, in 1929 to make room for paved roads. By 1940 the remaining canals had fallen into disrepair, and the sidewalks were condemned by the city. The canals were finally renovated in 1992. In order to do so, they were drained and new sidewalks and walls were built. The canals re-opened in 1993, and have become a desirable and expensive residential section of the city.

Beach Area:

Along the southern portion of the beach, at the end of Washington Boulevard, is the Venice Fishing Pier which is a 1,310-foot concrete structure which first opened in 1964. Due to the many rainstorms and different weather conditions, in late 2010, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors conducted a $1.6 million replacement of 30,000 cubic yards of sand at Venice Beach. They needed to bring in more sand because many parts of the beach had been eroded in recent years. On the southern side of the Venice Breakwater is an acclaimed local surf spot. Because of its location relative to the breakwater, the waves are usually ideal for surfing but not so much for swimming. The reason is that the choppy waves and irregular sea current make swimming in this area extremely dangerous. Even though this part of the beach isn’t good for swimming, because the beach is so wide and usually not so filled with people, it really is an ideal location to enjoy the sun and the sea air.

Venice Boardwalk:

The Venice Beach Boardwalk promenade stretches from the Santa Monica Boardwalk, and terminates in Marina Del Rey in the South. Notable attractions along the Venice Beach boardwalk include Muscle Beach, the Venice Beach Skatepark, as well as numerous basketball courts. Whenever I walk in this area I always like to stop by Muscle Beach which is nowadays an open gym, but back in the day reached worldwide fame and helped to popularize the legitimacy to physical culture with acrobatics and bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger with his documentary Pumping Iron and his rise to fame in Hollywood helped make this gym even more popular. Next to it are some basketball courts which are renowned across the country for their high level of street ball; numerous professional basketball players developed their games or have been recruited on these courts. Since the 1950s and 1960s, Venice became a center for the Beat generation and there was an explosion of poetry and art, which continues today. This is why we can still see many stalls selling artwork but also an enormous amount of murals that are scattered through many walls of the buildings in an around the area. Trying to see all of them is pretty difficult because they are often hidden or in places that one would not expect to see art in. Even though slightly empty on the day of filming, usually the Boardwalk attracts approximately 28,000 to 30,000 tourists daily.

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