San Francisco

The fog that delayed our arrival on Tuesday continued the next day, but we had been booked on a bus tour by the hotel concierge at a special rate (the same we would have paid as seniors if we had booked it ourselves!), however, the tour proved to be very entertaining. We were lucky enough to get the front seat, so had a spectacular view! We were picked up from the hotel at 10am and taken for a tour of downtown SF while other passengers were picked up. At 11am we started the actual tour and it finished at 3pm, so it was good value for money. See http://www.towertours.net/ for the full info.

We saw the main tourist spots, the Civic Centre, Golden Gate Park, the painted ladies, cable cars and trolleys, Lombard Street, Twin Peaks and we drive across the Golden Gate Bridge which was shrouded in fog. The guide was very informative, and had some predictable jokes but a good way to get your bearings around the city and to refer to maps while someone else drives.

The next day was perfect visibility and we took the cable car down to the San Francisco Maritime National Park and looked at the historical ships that are part of the Maritime Museum. This has to be the best value for money exhibit available in the whole of California, $5 each to tour the ships; it was valid for 7 days, so we could go back anytime we wanted. Fantastic morning, and next door a pretty but small beach and we flew the kite. After a reasonable lunch we travelled on the F line historic trolleys all the way from Fisherman’s Wharf to the end of the line at Castro. This is the headquarters of the gay area for SF and some colourful characters were to be seen.

The next day we caught the F line again to go to Fisherman’s Wharf but the trolley was over full so we got off at the Ferry building and went into the small museum about the cable cars of San Francisco, before continuing on to the Wharf. We went on a tour of San Francisco bay which included a trip under the Golden Gate Bridge and a tour past Alcatraz. Great fun! After lunch we took the N trolley to Ocean Beach, where Chris had a paddle in the Pacific Ocean. In the evening we discovered a great pub called Lefty O’Douls, great food, great atmosphere and friendly staff.
See http://www.leftyodouls.biz/ for the best place in town not mentioned in any of our guides to San Francisco. We met a guy there from London who is working in SF for a year, and goes there for the ambiance beer and food! He really recommended it!

On Saturday we planned to get to the cable car museum, the long queue even that early caused us to change our plans, instead we caught the F line to Fishermans Wharf again and visited USS Pampanito a World War 2 submarine on Pier 45. How on earth 80 men lived and worked on board for 75 days at a time is beyond us, don’t believe the films it is not easy to slip through the bulkhead doors to pass from one compartment to the next! The bunks were really small, and there were only enough for half the crew and privacy went out the window, sorry porthole!
Later on we went back to Ocean Beach to fly the kite there, caused a lot of excitement to one young lad, but it was totally ignored by everyone else!

Sunday after going back and forth to Lefty’s (Chris left her camera behind first time) we caught the Ferry to Oakland to visit Jack London Square. We had stopped there on our train trip from LA to Seattle and knew that the trains travel down the middle of the road. Also at night the place looked really interesting. It is not! Yes the trains run down the road, we saw some as soon as we got off the ferry, but apart from the huge Barnes & Noble book store, there is nothing there just yet another shopping mall! There was a farmer’s market on the go, but there seemed to be a lot of farmers creating jewellery and fancy goods! Also there was a guy playing the Sax and singing – good voice, great player but a lousy selection of songs. Still we found an excellent pub, The Fat Lady, and had a fun half hour there before catching the ferry back to SF.