The second half of our 2012 vacation was to San Francisco; we drove directly there from Yosemite National Park where we had spent the previous three days. I had visited San Francisco a few years ago and while I was only there for a couple of days (I was coaching a marathon group running the Nike Women’s Marathon for Team In Training) I found the city to be fascinating. Jen has never been there and we were headed to California for a wedding, so we decided to spend a few days playing tourist before returning home.
We decided not to keep the rental car while we were in San Francisco, mostly because it is really expensive to park in the city, adding between $35 and 50 per day to the cost of a hotel. We managed to get to the hotel, check in and unload our stuff, and then leave to head for the airport (where the rental car had to be returned) just at the start of rush hour. Yeah, that’s what kind of luck we have.
We stayed at the Larkspur Hotel in Union Square, which is near Nob Hill. The hotel was really cute but very old (for example, it has the original plumbing — our tub drained painfully slow — though the old architecture gives it a lot of personality). The staff there was very friendly and the location was perfect. We were in walking distance to plenty of eateries and easy access to Union Square where most of the city’s public transportation passes.
When we got up the following day, we headed to breakfast at Honey Honey Cafe & Crepery (my friend, Holly, and I had eaten there after the marathon in 2008 and loved it!). We had planned to spend the day taking tours of the city (we found a package of three open-bus tours for about $40/person) and walking around in various areas of the city. This worked out well and we learned a lot about the city itself throughout the day. After lunch at Boudin Bakery, we checked out the Sea Lions for a bit and then walked from Fisherman’s Wharf all the way back to the hotel. This was quite a trek, but it was also a really nice walk through Chinatown. We later decided to walk until we found somewhere for dinner and ended up eating at a diner down the road from our hotel that was less than remarkable.
Sea lions laying in the sun at Pier 39 in at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco
The next morning, determined to try a new place for breakfast, we wandered over to the Toast Eatery on Polk Street. This was on par with Honey Honey and the decor inside the diner was just as enjoyable. We headed down to the Wharf area to rent bicycles as we wanted to ride over the Golden Gate Bridge. This proved to be one of our best decisions and it allowed us to see several really nice parts of the city. We rode from the Wharf into the Marina District and over to the Presidio. We actually took a wrong turn into the original Presidio Fort area, which was nice because we would not actually have seen the area had we stayed on the right course. After a few minutes of cycling through the old army post, we realized we had gone the wrong way and got back on track to the Bridge.
The Golden Gate Bridge itself is an interesting thing to see. In the years before I traveled to San Francisco, I couldn’t understand the big deal about a bridge. Once you see it, things make more sense. It really is an amazing piece of architecture and the views are incredible. There are two walkways on the bridge; the East Sidewalk is the only one that allows pedestrian access and only during specific times of day, whereas the West Sidewalk is open to bicycles 24 hours per day. Cycling has become extremely popular in San Francisco and while recreational cyclists seemed polite and somewhat considerate of pedestrians and other cyclists, the road cyclists were not. It was disappointing to see how readily the cyclists that we either on a bike workout or commuting to/from work would expect you to move out of their way, and I’m guessing they weren’t too happy with my reluctance to do so.
Taking a short break to enjoy the view on the way back over the Golden Gate Bridge
We cycled into Sausalito in Marin County and had lunch. We had a beautiful view of the San Francisco Bay and enjoyed walking the stores lining the area of the harbor sidewalk. While we intended to take the ferry back to the Wharf, we barely missed the one we were waiting on (of 250 or 300 cyclists, we were probably 20th or 30th in line when they stopped letting people on) and didn’t feel like waiting two hours for the next one, so we road the bikes back to San Francisco. Overall, it was a great day and the cost of renting the two bikes (about $70) was well worth it. We went to dinner on Pier 39 that evening and then headed back to the hotel on a streetcar.
Leaving San Francisco was easier than we expected, partially because despite being fun, it’s a really busy city and can be exhausting. The fact that it was at the end of a week of vacation meant we were also kind of ready to get home and relax a little. Overall it was a fun time and the city is a fun place to visit.
