San Francisco, CA

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Decided that a greyhound from San Fran to Chicago for 48 hours might be a little tedious so we flew instead, even stopped off at Las Vegas en route (every bit as tacky as we thought, even slot machines in the airport). Stayed with Neil and his daughter Cloud in the Castro, formerly the gay district but not quite so much now. A very interesting area though and still full of rainbow flags. Spent our first afternoon wandering around Haight and Ashbury, where the summer of love has remained frozen in time. We visited the very cool chinatown in the evening, where we saw markets and music and ate in a great restaurant. We decided that local knowledge was best and so on the next morning, took a walking tour of the Castro with a San Franciscan. We got a chance to meet all the other Univ alumni in the afternoon at a picnic in golden gate park. The weather was a bit chilly/foggy but it was great to chat and drink pimms. The next few days were spent being real tourists. We drove across the golden gate bridge, visited Muir woods where there are lots of redwood trees (v tall), climbed twin peaks, visited the local medical school (!), rode on the trolley and even fit in a bit of shopping. All in all, it was a great city (albeit a lot colder than we imagined California to be, only 20 degrees most days), we loved the cute streets and the laid back atmosphere. Sad to leave so quickly 😞

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Photos

Haight and Ashbury
Pretty quirky area, but awesome.

View from Twin Peaks
Highest point in San Francisco

Rainbow flag
In the heart of the Castro

Entrance to Muir woods
Thought it was quite cool it shared the same name as Tom

Trolley car
Very typically San Francisco

Grand Canyon NP
Taken from the plane on the way to Las Vegas