We LOVE San Francisco

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SAN FRANCISCO – OUR KIND OF CITY

Welcome to San Francisco!!!! As soon as we hit the tarmac at the San Francisco airport we just felt comfortable, into a cab and the driver was lovely, telling us all about the history of the city, the cost of living (which is exuberant) and all the best places to visit.

We arrived at The Donatello hotel where we were checked in quickly, efficiently and our check-in guy ‘Jesus’ gave us a bottle of sparkling wine and some chocolates to celebrate my birthday a couple of days before … lovely man he was.

Then we were off to discover San Francisco – first stop China Town where we found the best restaurant where we eneded up coming back to every single night we were in San Fran!! The waiters were great, food AMAZING (dumplings, won ton soups etc) and the price perfect – just $21 for the both of us to have and entre, main and a couple of beers with dinner.

The we continued on and come to the part of town called ‘Little Italy’ – this place was awesome and you could really see why it had this name. Continuing on we came to Fisherman’s Wharf where we worked out where we had to catch the ferry for the next days adventures …

The next morning we were off bright and early and on a Ferry to Vallejo and once there were collected by the tour operator for a day of wine tasting in the Napa Valley! What a treat that was ….. actually Duane LOVED it and Kim …. You won’t believe it ….. could hardly drink a thing. Forced a few tastings down but then gave up … it was RED wine country!!!! We met some friends on the tour from Texas and lets just say it became an all nighter. When we got back to San Francisco it was straight to the pub as we had all done the smart thing and not made plans for the evening at the risk having tasted too much wine during the day so we were all free to enjoy the night ahead. We got some lessons on the basketball which was a big game with many Americans there supporting their teams. Then it was on to the ‘Piano Bar’ – now this place ROCKED!!! There is a piano and everyone else was sitting around the rest of the bar so we got the best seats in the place, right at the piano! Can you believe they actually let you sit there!! You get to choose songs out of a song book and the guy plays them all night long while you sing. We met some more people who were from Germany traveling the world, it was one of Germans birthday so we all decided we must celebrate! Many shots of spirits were sunk with many many more drinks shared between new friends – it was such a great night!!! And we cant wait to catch up with our Texan friends form the wine tour and our German friends from the bar when we finally get to do our world trip!

The next day it was a hangover walk to fisherman’s wharf to hire some bikes and we cycled the Golden Gate Bridge – it was so much busier than we had anticipated and not the ‘relaxing’ cycle we thought it would be … but still lots of fun. I only fell off the bike and nearly went over a brick wall with a 3m fall once so that was a bonus …. We then arrived at Sausalito which I had read was a quaint little seaside town – it sounded fantastic to me but in all honesty we were mot impressed at all, it was a boring town with LOTS of people and nothing to do or see … so it was on the first ferry out of there and back to San Fran for us ….

Last stop was a trip to Alcatraz which was well worth a visit and our last meal at our favorite restaurant in Chinatown .. then it was a very sad goodbye to San Francisco … a city that we fell in love with.

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