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The Getty Villa, perched on a bluff in the Pacific Palisades overlooking the ocean, has a cavernous parking garage for visitors to its Greek and Roman art collections. It also is easily accessible by bus from downtown Los Angeles—perfect for the daunting challenge I was about to undertake.
The Getty was my first stop on an unusual five-day odyssey. With the mantra these days to combat global warming by reducing our carbon footprint, I decided to tour what is probably the world's most car-dependent big city using only public transportation. Many car-addicted Angelenos don't realize that their city's public transit system is one of the nation's largest; it claims to be No. 3 in terms of passengers per day. My challenge would be to visit the city's wonderful but widely scattered tourist sites without ever getting into a vehicle that wasn't a bus or a train.
My five-day L.A. adventure ended up costing less than $30 in public-transportation fares. My final stop was in Pasadena to see the Huntington Library and Gardens, a vast estate with a European painting collection housed in an old mansion and acres of botanical gardens. By this point, I expected to be used to taking public transit. But I hadn't dreamed of an itinerary like this: a bus to Hollywood to catch the subway, the subway to Union Station, the Yellow Line light rail line to Pasadena, a local Pasadena bus and then a mile-long walk to the Huntington. When I was ready to leave, the sun was baking hot, and the driver of a lone taxicab at the entrance offered to take me to the Yellow Line station for the outrageous sum of $10. I hopped in without a second thought.