San Francisco

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17/07/09 Friday Day 337
After arriving in San Francisco airport we got our bags and headed for the train that goes into the city. The ticket machine is one of the most complicated I’ve seen. Basically you put in your money first and then start subtracting values until you get to how much your fare is. Luckily there was a member of staff on hand to help everyone!
We got the train to the Civic Centre in the middle of the city. We should have gone one stop more to Powell Street. The walk from the Civic Centre to our hostel was quite dodgy. There’s a lot of homeless people and beggars and people generally acting crazy. We found out later that evening that it’s not a good area at all. After checking in we headed down to Union Square and just walked around the centre a bit before coming back to our hostel for a 5 dollar lasagne they have on offer. After the cheap grub which turned out to be great value actually, we headed out on the town to see what the night life is like. We went to the rather trendy and funky bar beside our hostel, The Owl Tree. Small bar but nice for the one! After that we went to a bar that was like it was from somewhere in England. Another good place to go for the one. It’s a bit too quite. After another short walk we found Lefty O’Doul’s “Irish” bar with loads of baseball photos around the place. We ended up here for the night. Got chatting to 2 women from Canada and a bunch of yanks on the other side of us. There was also a one man band on the keyboards that was quite good and funny with his not so PC remarks!

18/07/09 Saturday Day 338
Extremely busy day today. First we went down to Powell Street to catch the Cable Car to Fisherman’s Wharf. This was quite cool as I hung off the side of it! San Francisco is just like the movies too. It’s very hilly in places with its ups and downs. It’s also a cold place, even in the height of the summer. Temperatures are only about 20 or 21 degrees. There were a few tight squeezes on the way too. Fisherman’s Wharf is very touristy indeed. Once we got there we had to buy ourselves some class of jumpers because it’s quite cold and windy too. The wharf is about 3 miles long all the way to the Ferry Building. There’s huge crowds around and loads of people on bikes whizzing around. You can also see Alcatraz Island from the wharf, which also has over 40 piers spanning the bay. You can get a boat tour around it too. Of course no day would be complete without some kind of drama. Someone either jumped or fell into the water at one of the piers resulting in two fire brigades, the fire brigade boat and the police boat. Once they pulled that tool from the water we left and walked on continuing down towards the ferry building. About half way down we took a right and headed for the Filbert Steps up to the Colt tower. Some brutal steep climbs in parts of the walk to it. There’s a nice view of the city and the bay from the top. We then started walking in towards the city passing by an Italian district and the financial district. We also walked part of Chinatown. We walked then to the ferry building. We were going to get a cable car but none came within a few minutes so we walked it instead. The ferry building in full of market stalls, both inside and outside it selling everything from caviar to fresh fruit and veg.
Once we got a bite to eat we got a shuttle bus back up to Fisherman’s Wharf where we rented some bikes to cycle over the Golden Gate bridge. There were two Irish lads working with the Blazing Saddles bike company. One the way we bridge was almost completely covered in mist and fog but once we got closer it started to clear up. It’s not a bad cycle with only a couple of steep parts in places. It’s about 8 miles to get to Sausalito. Cycling across the bridge itself is very windy. We nearly got blown off twice as we rounded the huge pylons in the middle. Sausalito then is full of cafes, restaurants and galleries. Very fancy altogether. The situation of getting back was terrible. There was a huge crowd in a line with their bikes and the first ferry that came took all the passengers without bikes and then only took about 20 people with bikes. Luckily after waiting for about an hour we got on another ferry but this one was dropping us back to the ferry building. So we had to cycle 2 kilometres back up to Fisherman’s wharf. Quite a day of walking and cycling. Knackered!

19/07/09 Sunday Day 339
Today we headed to the Golden Gate Park. The transport system in this city is very good so it’s no problem to get here. It just takes a small while with all the stops. We had a quick look at the botanic gardens before heading for the California Academy of Sciences museum. This has an indoor rainforest and an aquarium but it was slightly overpriced we thought. It’s still not a bad place to visit. The roof is also full of plants. They call it The Living Roof! After all of that we headed for Ocean Beach, which was at the end of the tram line we originally got. Quick photo opportunity there before we headed back into town. On the way back towards the city we got off at Church Street and walked down towards the Castro area. This is gay central with loads of rainbow flags around the place. Once we had enough seen there we headed back into the city and did some more walking around.

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