Road Trip Seattle to San Francisco - Day 15 – SF Union Sq, Chinatown, Ferry Bldg, Cruise & Concert

[anji]

Road Trip Seattle to San Francisco - Day 15 – SF Union Sq, Chinatown, Ferry Bldg, Cruise & Concert

Breakfast again at the hotel then today was the day to say goodbye to our beautiful car. We’d decided we didn’t need it within San Francisco so it was due back at Alamo at 10.30am. I’d really love one of these cars and the parking camera was wonderful!

We drove easily to Bush Street and found Alamo – then went into the wrong entrance so had to come out and go into the other one, which was a bit of a pain. Quick and easy to give it back though and all ok.

We walked from here to Union Square and had coffee and cookies at Emporio Rulli, an Italian café on the Square. We sat and people watched and were joined by some hungry sparrows.

From here we walked round Chinatown and ended up in Portsmouth Square, where the Chinese community had gathered for excercise, games and chat. We’d had a great meal on our last visit here but couldn’t remember where it was!

Onward to the Ferry Building via the Transamerica Pyramid and across the Sue Berman Park.

There were some amazing flowers in the park.

At this point there were suddenly hooters, sirens and buzzers going off really loudly. The words of the lady at Old Faithfull Geyser were in my head that it was an earthquake. Everything but the buzzer stopped and then a voice announced, seemingly from everywhere, that it was just a drill. You would think they’d announce it beforehand rather than afterwards! Nobody else seemed at all concerned though.

The Farmers Market was on at the Ferry Building. We loved this last time and equally as much today. Everything is so fresh, and huge compared to items sold in our supermarkets, as seems to be all foreign produce. We wandered the stalls and had some lunch at Boccalone, which specialised in all things pig related! We had a couple of pulled pork rolls and a soda.

We decided to take a harbour cruise so headed to Fisherman’s Wharf on one of the streetcars from in front of the Ferry Building. The cruise was for an hour and cost $30 each, a bit steep but it was worth it. We headed out towards the Golden Gate Bridge, with commentary, when it was announced there was a whale up ahead. We could see the spout but by the time we got there it had gone, so again no photos! We went right under the Bridge.

Then it was round Alcatraz (which we’d done the night tour last time – amazing!) and back towards the harbour. We watched flocks of pelicans and got a close up of the sealions.

Ben & Jerry’s was calling us so we stopped for an ice cream at their stand and sat in the sun to eat.

Our next visit was to the Mechanico Musee – a museum of old fairground amusements which was free to enter and absolutely fascinating! Some of them were quite scary – especially the Laughing Sailor type machines.

We walked along to Jack’s Cannery Bar and had a couple of beers sitting outside before heading back to the hotel to freshen up before going out. Tonight we were off to a concert at The Independent Club on Divisadero.

It was much too far to walk so the hotel called us a cab which came really quickly. He dropped us outside and we had a bit of a wander around the area before grabbing a couple of pizza slices at Seniores Pizza – dirt cheap and excellent.

We had booked the evening to see Twin Peaks play – we’d not heard of them before but they looked good on YouTube and Will always likes to see some music when we go away. We’ve seen some great stuff on our visits but this was a pretty unknown quantity.

The club was fairly small and held about 500 people with expensive beers. There were two other bands before Twin Peaks, one good, one awful. We enjoyed Twin Peaks – lively and loud! There was lots of smoking of not-cigarettes inside the club – so much so that the band commented on the smell. Yet if someone had lit a cigarette they would have been chucked out – go figure!

When we came out there was already a line of taxis outside so we had no trouble getting home. The driver thought he was Steve McQueen though and at one point the back wheels took off on one of the hills!

We’d walked miles today! We set the alarm for the morning as we were going on another walk – a tour of the Haight Ashbury area. Slept well!

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[Melbatb]

You packed a lot into the day - the harbour cruise sounds like it was worth it!

The museum sounds the sort of place we would go to!

[Disney Wishing]

Great shots of under the bridge!