SANTA MONICA, Calif. — “And all the stars (who never were) are parking cars and pumping gas ….”

Pie-eyed idealists are nothing new in Southern California. For nearly 100 years, the promise of fame and fortune has lured young people to the land of sunny skies and palm trees in hopes of being “discovered” as stars of film or music. A few have succeeded, but most of them — like the subjects of Burt Bacharach’s 1968 song, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” — have spent years in the jobs they once thought were temporary.

A January weekend visit to Santa Monica and adjacent Venice Beach showed me that little has changed since the early ’90s, when I spent many days here while working for a Los Angeles newspaper.

On Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, a pedestrian mall where I once was thrown into a blind audition for a television commercial (I failed), salsa dancers performed a flash routine beneath giant theater marquees advertising “War Horse” and “The Descendants.”

South of the storied Santa Monica Pier, whose Ferris wheel and roller coaster are visible for miles up and down the Pacific Coast, surfers sliced through 3- and 4-foot waves that curled toward the broad sandy beach.

In the Ocean Park neighborhood, where I once played in an informal Sunday roller hockey league, weekend warriors continued to do battle with large sticks and a very small ball, much to the amusement of tanned athletes at nearby beach volleyball courts.

And on Venice Beach, two muscular men spotted one another as they practiced the iron cross position on the still rings. “I can pick up any girl on the beach and show her the best time she’s ever had,” I overhead one boasting to the other. “And as soon as I sell my script, I’ll be able to take her wherever she wants to go.”

A bit of history

When visitors to the Los Angeles metropolis think of beaches, they typically think first of Santa Monica and Venice. Located about 13 miles west of downtown L.A. and five to eight miles north of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the communities grew up side by side but with distinctly individual characters.

Large Mexican-American ranchos once made up these oceanside lands. Two of them were subdivided in 1875 to plat the Santa Monica town site, its features including a shipping wharf and a rail line linking it to downtown L.A. Once judged a possible site for the Port of Los Angeles, Santa Monica developed as a beachfront resort center after San Pedro won the waterfront competition in 1897.

Meanwhile, tobacco-industry millionaire Abbot Kinney purchased and developed the unincorporated south end of the former rancho property at the start of the 20th century. Envisioning a “Venice of America,” he drained a seaside marsh for housing by digging several miles of canals. He then added a touch of Italy by importing gondolas and gondoliers from the Adriatic to offer tours of the watery maze.

Pleasure piers were a sign of the times — no self-respecting seaside resort would be without one — and these communities were not left behind. Dance clubs and amusement parks were built atop a series of wooden piers that extended as much as a quarter-mile into the surf. Within a few years, however, fire had claimed all but one. Today the Santa Monica Pier, built in 1909, is the lone survivor, and its original Looff carousel is a national historic landmark.

Aviation pioneer Donald Douglas founded his Douglas Aircraft Company (later McDonnell Douglas) at the Santa Monica Airport in 1922, and the first around-the-world flight started and ended here in 1924. Until 1968, the company maintained a presence here; today, its legacy is perpetuated at the impressive Museum of Flying, which will reopen this spring after a major renovation.

Today the population of Santa Monica is about 90,000. Another 40,000 live in Venice, considered a neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Exploring Venice Beach

There’s no more rapid way to immerse yourself in the spirit of the California beaches than to meander down Ocean Front Walk, also known as the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

This byway, free of motorized traffic, is paved from Santa Monica through Venice and all the way to Marina del Rey, a distance of about four miles. It hasn’t been an actual “board” walk for a very long time. But you don’t necessarily have to walk. Vendors at several locations offer rental bicycles and inline skates at rates that, earlier this month, began at $7 for one hour, $10 for two hours, and $20 for all day.

As you wander south, condominium dwellings are eclipsed by colorful shops on your left. On your right, a long row of street vendors lend a flea-market ambiance. Behind them, closer to the beach, a broad, sandy strand extends to the Pacific surf.

The beach is interrupted in numerous places by concrete recreational facilities: a skate park, basketball and handball courts, a body-building stadium, paddle-tennis courts and a children’s playground. There are public showers and changing facilities here as well.

Remember, this is not far from Hollywood. The skate park starred in “Lords of Dogtown.” The basketball courts were a centerpiece of “White Men Can’t Jump.” And actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger trained in the 1970s in the Muscle Beach body-building stadium at the end of 18th Street.

Activity along the Boardwalk is forever changing, but you may encounter some of the same people I did on my recent visit. Mimes, jugglers and rock bands, most of them very talented, compete for applause and tips. You may see artist Jean-Joseph Monfort, a colorful Haitian immigrant who paints magical canvases as passers-by watch in awe. You may encounter musicians on skates, like 60-year-old guitarist Harry Perry, a turbaned American Sikh who has been a fixture on the Boardwalk since 1973.

You might be inclined to check out the Freak Show, a carnival sideshow-style attraction with living two-headed reptiles and formaldehyde-preserved two-headed mammals. But the best “freak show” is on the Boardwalk itself, with its break dancers and extemporaneous rap poets.

You’ll find vendors selling beachwear and hula hoops, toe rings and hair extensions, temporary henna tattoos and permanent body piercings. You’ll find fortune tellers and festively painted Day of the Dead skulls, sage smudges and snow globes, wildly irreverent T-shirts and your name on a grain of rice.

You may note the sickly sweet smell of marijuana emanating from Rastafarian-run street stalls, even as you stop to eat at Figtree’s or the Sidewalk Cafe. And you’ll see models and mannequins dressed head-to-toe in green, urging you to pay $40 to consult with a “doctor” who might be inclined to prescribe a medical marijuana card. Several of these “offices” face the Boardwalk.

For more upscale and less odiferous dining and shopping, look a few blocks inland, to Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Once a neglected avenue, it has been spruced up in the past couple of decades, and now is home to fine boutiques and a growing “restaurant row.” I enjoyed a moderately priced lunch at Hal’s Bar and Grill, one of the longer established eating spots.

Only about two miles of the original canal system remain; they are mainly across Washington Avenue from Abbot Kinney Boulevard, nearer to the pleasure-craft metropolis of Marina del Rey.

The Pier and the Prom

When I think of Santa Monica, I think of the three P’s — the Pier, the Prom and the Palisades.

The wooden Santa Monica Pier extends about 1,000 feet into the Pacific at the seaward end of Colorado Avenue. It comprises two adjacent structures, a 1909 Municipal Pier and a 1916 Pleasure Pier — the latter designed by Charles Looff, the architect of New York’s Coney Island, who became even better known for his carousels, now considered the epitome of that craft. An antique Looff carousel is one of the Pier’s big attractions today.

Restored in the early 1980s, the 9 1/2-acre Pier now boasts a small amusement park (Pacific Park) with a dozen rides, including a 130-foot-high, solar-powered Ferris wheel and a steel roller coaster that travels above the waves at 35 mph. There are also arcades and curio shops, food stands and full-service restaurants, fishing decks and an aquarium, and Heal the Bay’s Marine Science Center, which doubles as an educational facility for students of all ages.

The Prom is the Third Street Promenade, three broad pedestrian blocks extending from Wilshire Boulevard across Arizona Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard to Broadway. Lining the Prom are several first-run movie complexes, high-end art galleries and fashionable cafes and boutiques. At its south end, between Broadway and Colorado Avenue and just two blocks from the Pier, is Santa Monica Place, an innovative 1979 shopping center (anchored by Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s) that was a midcareer work of trendsetting architect Frank O. Gehry.

Many of the city’s finest hotels stretch along Ocean Avenue from Montana Avenue south past the Pier. North of Colorado Avenue, they overlook the Palisades, a long bluff above the Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica Beach. Lush Palisades Park, which extends along the seaward side of Ocean Avenue, is a favorite place from which to watch the sunset.

Other locations in Santa Monica are worth a look for visitors with a little more time. Montana Avenue, four blocks west of Wilshire, is an upscale shopping and dining district that extends 10 blocks east from Seventh Street. The Bergamot Station Art Center, in a former trolley depot on Olympic Boulevard at 26th Street, is a center for contemporary art, film and design that incorporates the cutting-edge Santa Monica Museum of Art.

On Main Street south of Pico Boulevard, extending toward Venice, a mile-long shopping district is highlighted by Edgemar Plaza (2435 Main St.), a multi-use 1989 Gehry creation of skewed geometric forms and such contrasting design elements as stucco and galvanized steel.

As if to underscore architectural diversity, the nearby California Heritage Museum has a home in a restored 1894 Queen Anne manse. Single-topic temporary exhibits change every six to eight months; a current display on the short-board revolution in surf design, highlighting the period from 1967 to 1984, is scheduled to run until April 22.

Lodging and dining

Santa Monica, in particular, has scores of great hotels and restaurants.

When my budget allows, I’m partial to Shutters on the Beach. A luxury hotel with a relaxed Cape Cod appeal, Shutters has a beachside location that most Southern California hotels can only imagine. A full-service spa, a fitness center with a staff of celebrity personal trainers, and two outstanding restaurants add to its allure.

Only a couple of blocks away, the Viceroy Santa Monica is the flagship hotel of a small chain of luxury hotels. It may not be on the beach — the sand is a couple of blocks away — but the poolside cabanas make it seem otherwise. And it has a great restaurant, Whist, whose chef de cuisine, Chris Crary, was a top-10 contender in the current season of “Top Chef” on the Bravo network.

I also like Casa del Mar, which was an Italian Renaissance-style beach club when it opened in 1926, and the Shore Hotel, an eco-friendly property that opened three months ago facing Palisades Park on Ocean Avenue. Among less pricey options, the Hotel California has a sort of old-time charm, while Su Casa at Venice Beach has fully furnished suites overlooking the zany Boardwalk scene. And serious dollar watchers might opt for the international youth hostel in downtown Santa Monica.

As local restaurants go, I’m a longtime fan of El Cholo, a standby for solid Mexican cuisine. But after my most recent visit, I’ve added two new favorites to my list. Owners of The Misfit say they adopted their name because their food didn’t seem to fall easily into any particular category; the tapas-style menu ranges from chickpea wraps to Dixie-fried chicken.

The Hostaria del Piccolo, meanwhile, is Italian, but not typical Italian; never have I eaten better grilled octopus than was served here, and the roasted wild-boar sausage is wonderful.

Many of the popular bars also have modestly priced menus — places like Chez Jay, a 52-year-old celebrity dive; Harvelle’s, a jazz and blues club since 1931; and Ye Olde King’s Head, which always seems to have an international soccer match broadcast.

The night before I left town, I stopped into the Cabo Cantina on the Promenade and found a seat at the bar next to a pretty blond woman. She told me she was a pop singer and songwriter under the name “Harleqwin Damsel,” but when I asked where I might see her in concert, she told me she was not yet performing live.

Ah, yes, I thought to myself: Here is another idealist with her head in the clouds.

But, do you know what? The Damsel is for real. Her catchy techno-pop tune “Status That — the FB Song” is a YouTube phenomenon. Her album is scheduled for a spring release. She appears in a couple of television commercials. She is, as they say, on her way.

And she won’t be looking for a way back to San Jose.