San Francisco

After spending a good deal of the day driving across California from Yosemite we reached San Francisco Bay. Crossing the San Francisco-San Rafael Bridge into Marin County (where mountain biking began) we passed the San Quentin prison. We had booked a place in an RV Park in Greenbrae as it evidently had easy access to a ferry to San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge with just a touch of fog.

Once we had booked in our minds turned to the necessary tasks to complete before beginning exploring the city. For Fiona this was the washing, for Rob (who admittedly had been driving all day) it was mountain biking. For those of you who notice details the last time Rob did any “proper” mountain biking was back in Colorado and withdrawal symptoms were well and truly set in.

Riding the ferry to the big smoke

Next morning we were up and on the ferry to San Francisco (our first city in three months). The ferry ride was great with views of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge and the city itself. Arriving at the ferry terminal we were greeted with a huge farmers market. 

Lots of lovely food.

We spent a lovely time wandering around tasting amazing stone fruit, cheeses, bread etc. One man was giving out samples of sun dried fruit. It tasted so much better than any dried fruit we have tasted before. Luckily we had a backpack with us so were able to stock up on goodies. We had allocated 2 days to the city so decided to spend our first day on foot.

We had a great time touring around the harbor area with the highlight for Symi being the sea lions which lounge around on the jetties. We did take the opportunity of a quick coffee in the sunshine as well.

Sea Lions at pier 39

Not RV friendly

Then it was on to tackle climbing some of the city’s steep hills. We of course visited the most crooked street in the world. Glad we did not bring the RV as it would have found the corners challenging.

By this time it was late in the afternoon and well past lunch time. China town was just around the corner. It is huge. We found a dim sum place and settled in for lunch. We spent a bit more time wandering around looking at houses, cable cars and trams and then decided to call it a day and take the ferry back.

Later in the evening we decided on a picnic dinner of local buys (evidently this makes us locivores!). Fortunately we had bought some local county wine so we were able to accompany our picnic with a glass of red.

Next day we decided to bus in over the Golden Gate Bridge. We were lucky with the weather on our stay as there was only fog over the bridge in the afternoon of our second day. That said, the temperatures in the city were decidedly cooler than if you went inland a little. Today was to be the day of the cable car. We purchased our day passes and were confronted with an hour long line to board a cable car.

We waited about 10 mins and decided that there must be shorter cues elsewhere. We hopped on a bus and rode around for a bit then found a queue of only a few people on the cable car that crosses the financial district. We waited about 10 minutes and then got an outside seat where Symi and Rob were able to stand out on the step. Symi was well pleased about this. Hitting the bottom of the financial district we decided to try out the rail system and head over to Castro district for lunch. We got off the train and saw a retro looking diner which looked good.

Lunch was good and made more enjoyable by the very gay owner who went out of his way to look after and entertain us.

Staying on theme we then headed up for a walk through Haight-Ashbury and down to the golden gate park.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on public transport. We rode on a great retro tram - San Francisco seems to obtain from other cities – the one we were on was from Chicago. We followed this up with more cable car rides and then a ferry ride back home. 

The verdict? We loved San Francisco our first city in over three months but don’t think we could spend long periods of time doing city tourism on this trip. Strangely a day walking around a city is more tiring in many ways than a 20k walk. The other reason would be that we could never afford it. We still have a few cities on our to do list but will definitely be spending the majority of our time exploring the natural wonders of this country (+ the man made single track).