Hollywood & Highland

One of L.A.'s most visited tourist attractions, this 387,000 square-foot shopping mall and entertainment center makes an enormous, colorful splash on the sometimes scruffy Hollywood Walk of Fame. The complex includes the Dolby Theatre (formerly known as the Kodak Theatre) which hosts both the Oscars and Cirque du Soleil's Iris, a resident stage show which celebrates the history of film.

The core of Hollywood & Highland is arranged around a three-story courtyard, where soaring, elephant-topped columns evoke the Babylon set of D.W. Griffith's 1916 epic, Intolerance. Fanning out from here, you'll find over a dozen restaurants ranging from food-court outposts to destination dining, two night clubs, a bowling alley and 75+ retail shops, including large national chains like Gap, Build-A-Bear and Sephora.

Adjacent to the main mall is the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, an ornate movie palace festooned with Far East flourishes and featuring a cement-paved forecourt bearing over 200 celebrity hand and footprints. Originally opened in 1927 by movie-house mogul Sid Grauman, the Chinese Theatre is still a popular movie theater with a single large screen and more recently, an additional six-plex. The "Forecourt of the Stars," as well as a slew of character impersonators lingering around it in full costume, attract busloads of out-of-towners and souvenir hawkers each day.