Sunday 31st March 2019
Let’s go…to San Francisco
March 2019
Cast (it’s the usual one!)
Me: Shaun, 50’s, loves travelling, eating and drinking (not necessarily in that order!)
Alison: 50’s, ditto to the above!
Link to Index:
Here
We had an early start today and actually needed to put an alarm on for the first time this trip!
Today we had a full day - we scheduled a trip to
Muir Woods to see the redwood trees, not to be confused with sequoias. Over breakfast Alison opened up her Mother’s Day cards from the girls, they’d been on a three-line whip to get a card, sign it and hand over for us to take them with us!
Our pick up point was only about a 30 minute walk away so off we walked through Chinatown which was just starting to wake up.
A lot of shops were starting to display their wares – and people were starting to line up to buy. We honestly could have been in Hong Kong – it was amazing!
Our pick up point was an office next to the
Zephyr Hotel near Fisherman’s Wharf to check in. We didn’t have to wait too long before a nice big coach turned up and we settled down for the trip.
Our driver was Darren and he was really good! Informative, funny and a good driver of the coach which was very comfortable, everything you’d need for this type of trip. Alison said he looked like Brian Friedman, whoever that might be ?
We traveled over the Golden gate bridge once again and slowly drove along to Muir woods taking in the lovely countryside along the way.
At the park entrance we were told that we’d have just shy of 2 hours here before the bus left. We picked up a trail map and headed off, avoiding the main masses of people as far as possible.
it was really lovely to walk around the woods in the open air in direct contrast to the cityscape that we’d been used to over the last few days. With time to spare we stopped for a coffee and bought some items from the gift shop before a last restroom break (with a scary wasp warning sign).
We picked up the bus which dropped us off in
Sausalito where we had as much free time as we’d like and included ferry ticket to take us back to the mainland. We wandered around the town and gawped at the very expensive properties here, even the estate agents had adverts for multi-million pound yachts!
Feeling a bit peckish we decided to go for a burger at a place called….
Hamburgers! Fantastic little find where you can watch the burgers being hand made from scratch before being flame grilled and served up. Absolutely bloomin’ fantastic!
When it was time for the ferry we wandered over via an ice cream shop – yummy!
Then boarded the blue and gold ferry which stopped at
Tiburon before heading over to San Francisco. We didn’t get off at Tiburon as we didn’t have time but it looked like another “Stepford Wives” type place, very manicured. All the time today the weather has been glorious – so much better than expected! We got caught out by this as we both got a bit burned!
After docking we wandered to Pier 39 to see the sea lions again then stopped in to buy a couple of Pandora charms for Alison’s bracelet!
A cable car and a golden gate bridge
Then after a coffee stop we decided to walk to
Coit Tower – it was quite a drag uphill but we eventually made it!
The cost to get the lift to the top was $9 which I thought was a bit steep so I just wandered around the inside and looked at the famous murals.
We flopped down outside the tower for a while, checked the maps and realised the only logical way back was on foot for about 25 minutes, thankfully all downhill!
We finally made it back to the hotel in time to use a voucher we’d been given at check in for 2 free cocktails - Alison had a Local gin (Junipero) and tonic, which was very nice! I had a smoky old fashioned, and we had some nuts and hummus to share.
Then it was time for our final evening visit to the lounge for soft drinks and Chinese sweet and sour chicken.
Keeping up with the Chinese theme we popped out for a last visit to Chinatown, which was bizarrely very quiet.
We headed back to the hotel and packed our things and set our alarms for an early start tomorrow!