OverSixty January 2023 Issue

38 TRAVEL ISSUE 3 | JANUARY 2023 | OVERSIXTY.COM.AU PLAN BEV MALZARD PLAN P ut the plastic away for a while and relax. It might be the epitome of wealth and luxury, but there aremany fun things to do in Beverly Hills for nix. • Spot your favourite celebrities on Rodeo Drive and restaurants around the Golden Triangle – ripe for star sightings. • Capture a perfect souvenir by snapping a picture in front of the famed Beverly Hills sign in Beverly Gardens Park. • Window shop ‘til you drop on Rodeo Drive. These three blocks of luxury shopping are the best in the world for day-dreaming. • Watch the historic Electric Fountain come alive with varying light and water patterns. • Get lost in the vast department stores along Wilshire Blvd – aptly nicknamedDepartment Store Row. Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus provide hours of shopping entertainment. • Feel like a celebrity when you walk the red carpet entrance at The Beverly Hills Hotel. • Pose with the family of statues outside the Fred Hayman commemorative building on North Canon. The building, with eye- catching yellow and white striped awnings, is a recreation of Hayman’s storefront of Giorgio Beverly Hills, the first luxury retailer on Rodeo Drive. • Admire City Hall’s Spanish Renaissance- style architecture, including an eight-storey tower with blue, green and gold tiled dome. • Head into BeverlyWilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, to admire the beautiful lobby floral display and get a peek inside this famous hotel where Pretty Woman was filmed. • Take a seat inside the lobby of The Beverly Hills Hotel and absorb the luxurious grounds that many celebrities have walked upon throughout the hotel’s 100-year-history. • Pause on the 3 Block of Rodeo Drive to see the Frank Lloyd Wright designed ‘Anderton Court’, marked by the identifiable spiral ramp and triangular tower. • Check out the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2013. The state-of-the-art centre transforms a Beverly Hills city block into a vibrant new cultural destination with two distinct, elegant buildings: the historic 1933 Italianate- style Beverly Hills Post Office and the new, contemporary 500-seat Goldsmith Theatre. Thesetwostructuresembracethecity’shistory and future, creating a cultural landmark and offering a wide range of entertainment options if you want to treat yourself. • Head up to Greystone Mansion & Park, a legendary estate built by the Doheny family, which is now a beautiful park open to the public. Can you find the koi and turtles? • Print a Beverly Hills Walking Tour from LoveBeverlyHills.com or pick one up at the Beverly Hills Visitor Center and then explore the city on foot. • Feet too tired? On Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 5pm, jump aboard the iconic Beverly Hills Trolley, a free shuttle service between the Civic Centre and Rodeo Drive. • Take in the sounds of the courtyard’s babbling fountain as you relax, on the grass or at café tables, in Beverly Canon Gardens. • Make your way to the ‘Mecca for cheese aficionados’ – The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills. The staff is delighted to share their extensive knowledge of cheese as well as offer free samples. • See the world’s first 24-hour Cupcake ATM at Sprinkles Cupcakes. Though it’s viewable without making a purchase, it’s worth every dollar to try their signature Red Velvet treats. • Check out gourmet candy shop Sugarfina and indulge in a sample of their candy at their Tasting Bar. Chat with their Candy Concierge to create a custom Sugarfina gift. • LettheBeverlyHillsVisitorCenterConcierge assist youwithall of your needs, fromsecuring sightseeing tour tickets to making dinner res�- ervations at one of the exquisite restaurants. • Take a look outside The Witch’s House, aka the Spadena House, a private residence built in 1921 for a silent filmmovie. An enchanting cottage with a pointy, lopsided roof, it looks like something out of Hansel and Gretel . • Pick up a booklet of Exclusive Offers at the Beverly Hills Visitor Center, redeemable at shopping, dining, sightseeing, and spa and salon locations throughout Beverly Hills. • Access free Wi-Fi at many cafes and on the stunning Beverly Hills Civic Center grounds. Take in the pleasures and beauty of Beverly Hills without putting a dent in your wallet, courtesy of these thrifty activities Photo: Getty Images Wall of fame – Carinda Hotel HELEN FOSTER INSPIRE T here’s not a lot in the NSW outback town of Carinda – about 50 people, a gas pump and a pub – but one day in 1983, a man with two different colour eyes stepped into the pub’s front bar and immortalised a stretch of its wall forever. That man was David Bow- ie and he was filming the video for “Let’s Dance”. But what’s it like to visit the Carinda Hotel, the pub Bowie made famous, today? Well, for starters there’s a lot less dust than youmight be expecting. Like somany people of a certain age, I grewup associating the first ‘ahh, ahh, ahh’ bars of “Let’s Dance” with a cattle truck sweeping round a bend throwing rough red dust into the camera lens. It was even that flurry of dust that won the Carinda Hotel the gig, as director David Mallet want- ed a pub on a corner of two dirt roads. Today, that road is sealed. But, even with its smooth new surface and a paint job that’s changedthepub’s1980spastelpinkinteriorto brown,thedesolatesweepofroadbringsback memories of teen discos, red shoes and dancing the blues. But it’s when you walk inside that you really step back forty years. The bar still curves around the middle of the pub, pool table at the back and off to your right are the famous yellow and brown tiles that Bowie once leaned against in his shirt and clean white gloves. It’s lucky they are still there. When former publican Malcolm George bought the pub back in 2015, the tiles were falling off the fa- mous wall – but they used pictures from the video to restore it so they look exactly how it did that day. There’s even still a small section of the chequerboard floor. Bowie didn’t want to use actors in the video, so a handful of the town’s then-194 residents who were in the pub at the time got the chance to be in the shot. Today, the population of Carinda is smaller, but every- one still knows about the day Bowie came to town. “My mum always told us how she was coming home on the school bus and as the bus turned the corner to go down the main road, she saw the weirdest thing. There were people with brooms sweeping the street,’ says Simone Lehnen, 32. ‘Then as she got off the bus, she saw Bowie walking out of the servo. He had the bronzed make-up and the bleached-looking hair and it was just surreal. No one knew they were coming except the publican.’ Located about eight hours drive from Syd- ney, and a three-hour drive down the back roads from Dubbo, the nearest large town, the hotel doesn’t encourage much passing trade. But this is a close-knit community with the pub at its heart and so by 5pm on the Tuesday night we visit, the bar is starting to fill up. Most of the drinkers are shearers at local sheep farms and, when not talking about Bowie (they know why visitors are here), chats range from flocks full of lice to a 4WD vs pig encounter in the early morning light – that didn’t end well for the pig. And then there are the chickens; no one knows who owns the two chickens scratch- ing around the porch of the pub. Everyone is asked, and the car of one local who keeps hens is hailed over as they drive past (nope, hers are fine, but they are up a tree so, there’s likely to have been a fox). It takes until 8pm for themystery to be solved.The fact that two out-of-place chickens get noticed by every- one, makes the fact that one of the world’s biggest rock stars managed to slip in and out of town, with barely anyone knowing he was here, even more fantastic. Now under new ownership, the Carinda Hotel is located at 22 Colin Street Carinda. Rooms cost from$55 a night: www.facebook. com/carindahotel. The town has a Bow- ie-themed festival each October, see more at www.letsdancecarinda.com David Bowie’s iconic music video to his hit song “Let’s Dance” (above) was filmed in the Carinda Hotel in 1983 Photo (left): Alamy INSPIRE Free stuff to do in Beverly Hills, California? You bet! The pub made famous by a David Bowie music video The Hills are alive!