Day 11 - The Streets of San Francisco... Mainly on foot!

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Day 11 - San Francisco SightSeeing, Distance traveled - Too much on foot!

Our last full day in San Francisco so we decided to hit it hard and pound the pavements in a bid to see everything we had so far missed! First of course we needed the obligatory taxi ride with a foreign driver (South American of some sort this time) who once again didn't know where he was or where he was going.

Bearing in mind our chosen destination was only seven miles away, is called Golden Gate Park, and is the largest municipal park in Northern America, 20% bigger than Central Park in New York, it was quite unbelievable! Having loaned him our tourist map so he could work out how to get to the 3 mile wide green square in the middle of San Francisco, we were off.

We were dropped off by the Buffalo, he's probably still there trying to work out how to get back out again but he seemed more excited to see Buffalo in SF than we were! I'm not sure why they are there in the park as there was nothing about them but it was interesting to see them there nonetheless! We then set off on our two mile trek to the eastern edge of the park where we hoped to hook up with our hop on, hop off bus again.

The park is lovely and has an amazing amount of stuff going on. We walked past lakes for model boats, streams, waterfalls, an 18 hole frisbee golf course, rose gardens, Japanese tea gardens, a Polo arena and stables, running and cycling tracks, segway tours and a number of picnic areas complete with fire pits and barbys where you just turn up with your family and a cool box and cook your own lunch. There appeared to be a big work group doing just that with tables laid and barby's going whilst they stood around in their work clothes. They were probably from Apple!

After our 2 mile trek, we came to the Eastern edge of the park where the De Young Museum of Art is located in a very funky bronze clad building, sadly it's closed on Mondays (phew). Just opposite, located under a roof that looks like it belongs to Tinky Winky and his mates is the California Academy of Sciences museum, which was open...but we decided we wanted to see more of the city than be stuck in a museum on our last day. This is also the area to hire bikes, segway and little motorbike powered 2 seaters ' for touring the park....great that we found them just as we had completed our trek!

We waited patiently outside the museum for our 'regular as clockwork, every 20 minutes' blue hop on, hop off bus...which true to form turned up after about an hour. They claim to have 6 buses working the route but as we waited ages each time we were at a stop and saw the same (very funny) guide on 3 of our 5 trips I suspect this isn't quite the case. The red 'hop on, hop off' bus run by another company however, seemed to be everywhere so I'd use them next time.

Next stop after the museum was the hippy area of Haight Ashbury...not a pretty part of town and the guide was keen to point out a park where Hendrix, Santana, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and others had all at some time strummed guitars or sang under the trees whilst (allegedly) on some sort of illegal substance ...if this was true then keep an eye out for the future talent from that park who as far as I can make out are a Tramp, bum and hobo with a shopping trolley backed up by druggie, drunkard and psycho.... Not a place to get off these days I think.

We did however get off at the stop after that to admire the architecture of Alamo Square, yes that's right, not an IPAD spelling cock up, I got off a bus to look at architecture. Alamo square is a pretty square surrounded by colourfully decorated Victorian period houses (the painted ladies) all of which withstood the earthquakes of 1909 and 1987 and which have a fantastic view down the hill of downtown San Francisco. The tour guide was keen to point out that the architecture is 'Queen Anne style Victorian', which caused Shas to crack up as there's apparently 250 years between those two periods, and not a lot of American architecture that could possibly go back that far! Sadly the architecture/monarchy references are lost on an ignoramus like me...the guide however thought he was being serious.

Having seen the architecture, we decided the centre of town only looked a short walk down the famous steep sloped streets so rather than wait two weeks for the next blue bus we set off on foot through the pretty Victorian/Queen Anne neighbourhood of Fillmore, which quickly became a not very pretty and slightly scarier neighbourhood where everything had bars, barbed wire and security but it was a lovely day and everyone seemed to be off the streets ;-)

At the bottom of the hill we covered the opera house, symphony hall and civic centre in quick succession although city hall looked more like St Paul's cathedral to me. The plaza in front of city hall was being set up for a massive outdoor concert on Wednesday night but sadly we won't be here to see it. I think it was for the San Francisco Symphony opening night....or Crosby Stills and Nash, the security guards looking after the site didn't seem to be too sure!

From there it was time to seek out the mysterious and elusive blue bus one more time for a trip through the shopping district (kept Shas occupied so she didn't spot Tiffanys, Chanel, Saks, Macy's and the rest) and we returned back to the waterfront and Pier 39. We watched the California sealions basking on the docks for a while, quite comical how they all sleep on top of each other and how tempers flair as one rolls over and sets off a chan reaction down the dock of barking and roaring, then it was a quick pizza and a trip round the Bay Aquarium....not a huge aquarium but the usual shark tunnel/tank and giant octopus tank made it bearable...but certainly expensive for what it was.

It was then time for one last walk, back up the steep SF streets to Lombard Street, the twistiest driving street in the world apparently. By the time we reached Lombard Street we were knackered, it was only about a 6 block climb but it felt vertical. What I hadn't realised is Lombard Street is about 3 miles long and we were in the middle of it....and the twisty bit is only at one end, up another very long long hill and whilst we could see it in the distance, one look at Shas told me our day was done and I wouldn't get that particular photo opportunity!

We had walked miles today and plans for one last big night out in SF were quickly shelved at the thought of having to take one more step....so there was only one thing for it, find another cab and see what joys that journey home would bring. True to form, we had another one who didn't know where the district of Pacifica was ( bit like being in central london and the cab driver not knowing where Clapham is), he was russian (i think) and bizarrely had his car key chained to a welded loop on his dashboard. Once again the tourist map was needed and we set off through evening rush hour across town shunning any form of main road, instead bouncing up and down some of the steepest back streets SF has to offer, i wanted to strap a blue light on the roof and do it properly.

It was lovely to get back to the 'resort' and sit peacefully on a bench overlooking the sea as the sun went down and the Pelicans circled overhead. We had found an English fish and chip shop next the the RV park but even the 200 yard walk for that was too much so bacon and egg fry up and tinned salmon sandwiches it was, with our feet up. Yup we're turning into trailer trash the longer this trip goes on.

Tomorrow it's time to move on to Monterey, another site by the sea, more aquariums and a trip out to see the whales in the bay on a boat, I hope it's warm (and calm)...

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