Classic beach towns of Southern California - includes Laguna Beach, Newport-Balboa, Venice and Avalon

Back at the Fun Zone, walk northwest along Edgewater Avenue, past private Bay Isle. Continue on Buena Vista Boulevard (7). The most charming of bayfront residential stretches, its public walkway separates fine homes from their landscaped private docks at water's edge.

Continue to Bay Avenue, then turn left at Seventh Street. Cross Balboa Boulevard to the beach and turn left on Ocean Front (8) to the pier. En route, cottages from the 1920s offer an idea of old Newportvervandas, sagging swings, collected shells on the curling paint of a faded windowsill.

VENICE Circus streets and calm canals

Venice of America was its formal name.

In 1904, Abbot Kinney's steam shovels transformed a salt marsh on Santa Monica Bay into a watery maze of isthmuses and canals. What he had in mind was not just a resort but a mecca of art and enlightenment: a Southern California Renaissance. On Windward Avenue rose grand hotels. Symphony orchestras thundered at the Summer Assembly.

But how could high culture compete with Pacific surf? Angelenos preferred boardwalk antics to bassoon solos. So the flexible Kinney built plunges, bathhouses, amusement piers, and a midway to house the likes of Madame Canihac, Queen of the Lion Tamers. Within screaming distance of ocean breakers whirled the thrill rides: The Flying Seaplanes, The Dippy Dips, and Race Thru the Clouds-a 4,000-foot-long roller coaster.

Well into the 1920s Venice thrived as the West Coast's Coney Island. Then misfortunes-flood, fire, the imposition of Los Angeles' blue laws-spun the town into decline. By 1929, even the famous canals had been largely filled in and paved.

But like a good thrill ride, Venice rose again. Today's version remarkably resembles Kinney's original dream. Part souk, part circus, it harbors artists, writers, restaurateurs, remnant hippies, retirees, and sizable black and Hispanic communities. Other beach towns are relaxing. Venice is not. Any stroll, bike ride, or roller skate down Ocean Front Walk confronts you with sights entertaining and unsettling. Our 4-mile walk shows you Venice's public hubbub and its historic, quiet side.

Take the Santa Monica Freeway (1-10) to Santa Monica and the Fourth Street exit; turn left on Colorado Avenue, then left on Main Street; stay on Main 2 miles to Windward. Parking is tight: arrive early, or on a weekday, and park in one of the all-day lots off Speedway (about $5).

"I will to Venice"-architecture, ice cream, and canals

Start at Windward Circle (1). Kinney's Grand Lagoon became a traffic circle in 1929. Now architect Steve Ehrlich's postmodern works pay homage to a gaudier past. At the south side of the circle 1600 Main Street-The Race Thru the Clouds Building's curved strip of neon honors the coaster that once clattered on this site. Also on the circle's south side is the Venice Post Office (lobby is open to 6 Pm. weekdays, to 3:30 Saturdays); inside, a 1932 mural portraying Venice history stars Abbot Kinney. Then walk southwest down

Windward Avenue (2). Here stand the most visible reminders of Kinney's dream, a broken line of three-story buildings whose colonnades sheltered visitors from the sun. Today the buildings house a motley assortment of shops. But at Windward's end, the old St. Mark's Hotel has been renovated into St. Mark's Restaurant, an art deco inspired jazz club open for dinner and music nightly from 6 Pm.; (213) 4522222. On the building's south face, L.A. artist R. Gronk's Botticelli-inspired mural, Venice on the Half Shell, depicts a goddess on roller skates and other Ocean Front Walk inhabitants.