We’re sitting by our hotel pool in Laguna Beach, enjoying the sunshine and I’ve realised that I haven’t even told you about San Francisco and the famous Highway 1 yet!
We spent 4 nights in San Francisco, which is a good amount of time to see quite a bit of the city – any less time would be a struggle. These were our first impressions of SF:
- Cold and foggy – as we drove into San Francisco we should have been able to see our first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was shrouded in thick fog, which is very common on this part of the coast.
- Fantastic public transport system.
- A ridiculous number of homeless people/bums/drop-outs – the first encounter we had with a San Franciscan was with a homeless guy who wanted to help us carry our bags from the car.
- There seemed to be a lot of areas that you don’t want to walk around, especially at night.
That mostly seems a bit negative, but over the next few days San Francisco really grew on us and by the time we left we decided that we would definitely love to go back. It has great architecture, delicious food, wonderful scenery and a vibrant atmosphere.
For the first couple of days we took the easy option of a hop on-hop off tour bus – a good way to get familiarise yourself with the layout of SF and the different neighbourhoods. This particular company took you over the Golden Gate Bridge, so we did this twice to make sure that we got to see some of it through the fog.
One of our favourite days was when we went walking through Chinatown and North Beach (SF’s Little Italy). We love seeing different areas, enjoying the cafe culture and doing a bit of people watching. We didn’t expect to see Arnold Schwarzenegger though. We were sat outside the North Beach Restaurant enjoying a refreshment and we heard a passer-by say that he was in there. We then noticed lots of suited, serious looking guys milling around and a big vehicle with blacked out windows waiting outside. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later out walks Arnie, with cigar in hand. Unfortunately when the bodyguard saw that Angus had a professional looking camera, he said rather menacingly “please don’t do that, Mr. Schwarzenegger is on personal time”. So, we didn’t get a photo! He’s not as tall as you might think.
The real highlight for us though was a visit to Alcatraz. Do not go to SF without going there! It was fantastic and on the day we were there, one of the ex-inmates (Darwin Coon), who has written a book, was there signing copies. It was quite strange, after doing the tour, to have a guy who had spent 4 years in there sitting talking to me. He didn’t say very much and although on a normal day I would have had 1001 questions, my mind was blank!
Actually, there was another highlight – going to watch the San Francisco Giants (Baseball) at AT&T Park. That was excellent – brilliant atmosphere, friendly people. Unfortunately they lost to the Chicago Cubs, and it was quite an important game for the Giants, but we still had a ball (sorry, terrible pun). Angus then thrashed me twice at pool – everyone has bad days! I also have to brag that on that evening I got asked for ID twice when ordering drinks at the bar, so that felt like a little victory to me.
I think that the only area we were a bit disappointed with was Haight-Ashbury – the iconic sixties home of the hippies. There are definitely lots of hippies still there, but to me most of them seemed to be young people, wearing clothes made from hemp, asking for change. Are they genuinely homeless, or is it just “cool” to hang about the area like that because of it’s history? It’s maybe unfair to pose the question, but the area just had a bit of a fake feel to it. There are some interesting shops and cafes (I had the best pastrami Sandwich at Rockin Java), plus Amoeba Records is located there – the biggest collection of vinyl I’ve ever seen under one roof. Would still recommend a visit – draw your own conclusions.
Our trip down Highway 1 commenced the next day, but I shall save that for another post as this is getting too long!
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