Let's go... to San Francisco March 2019 - Day 7 (San Francisco - Presidio & Lombard Street)

[BONZO]

Saturday 30th 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

Today we need to cover all the things we haven’t yet completed!
We were up early (what is it about 3.45am for Alison) for coffee then had breakfast in the lounge as normal.

We then headed out for a trip to the Presidio via a couple of buses, swapping over at a central train depot. We had bought one day passes on the app for $12 to include cable cars as well which was really good value, considering a single cable car ride was $7.

We ended at the Presidio which was a little Stepford Wives – very manicured but pretty and with fantastic views.

We came here for the Walt Disney Family Museum which was amazing! Wasn’t really sure what to expect but the family had put together some unique artefacts and family mementos that brought the Disney story to life. We could have spent much more time here just looking at all the exhibits but time was moving on.

We then jumped on a free bus back to the city centre where we stopped for a coffee

and then hopped on a streetcar

down to Fisherman’s Wharf

to get an original Irish coffee at The Buena Vista Hotel (the birthplace of Irish coffee) – not cheap but it’d seem a shame not to stop by and try one and boy was it strong!

The whole area was heaving with locals and tourists alike as we looked for something light to eat, plenty of waitress served restaurants around but eventually we found a Subway without any queue that fitted the bill. We doubled back to the Fisherman’s Wharf Cable Car Turnaround to take a trip to the top of Lombard Street (The crookedest street in the world).

The wait to get on the Cable Car was horrendous, but we toughed it out in the sunshine and tagged each other in the queue from time to time, so we could each sit down for a while.

Finally we got on a cable car (yet again not outside!) and we hurtled up and down a couple of hills and the brakeman was having trouble avoiding traffic and pedestrians, so much so you could smell the burning of the cherry wood blocks. The upshot of this meant that we didn’t actually stop where we wanted to be and ended up at the end of the line in Chinatown. Not a problem – we have unlimited rides!

We decided to visit the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. I’d looked it up beforehand and it said it was down an alley way and difficult to find, well, being a busy weekend day there were queues forming to have a look around and it wasn’t really that tough to seek out. The cookies were delicious and came in all sorts of variations but we just bought a huge bag of flat discs to take home – let’s see how that pans out!

As our hotel was so close to Chinatown we walked back and just dropped some bits and pieces off and picked up jackets (it was so warm today we’d just worn t-shirts) and headed back out to get a Powel Mason cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf and to get to Lombard Street. As luck would have it we managed to get on the outside and hang on all the way to the end of the line! Quite exhilarating really!

I nearly had a “Frank Spencer” moment as the cable car trundled downhill and turned a 90 degree corner just when the conductor asked me for my ticket. The trouble was the ticket was on my phone so I had to fumble in my pocket, get my phone out, unlock it and show my ticket whilst trying to hang on!

The end of the line was at the bottom of the hill so we just slogged our way on foot up to the top - phew! It was so steeeeeep!

The views were worth it though!

Finally we walked down the street

and took some pictures as the sun was beginning to set

and jumped on a cable car back home again hanging on all the way outside! Quite spectacular riding the tram all the way in the dark, very special.

We took a slow walk back to the hotel before having a lovely curry in the lounge.

We talked about what was left on our “Bucket list” for San Francisco and decided to go ahead and book a Muir Woods tour for the following day.

We had a coffee and some cookies in the lounge

then turned in for the night after another busy day.

[disney owl]

Another good day