3rd June – San Francisco again

Having been gently lulled to sleep by the music from the Moroccan restaurant next door and the sound of police sirens, not to mention the various unpleasant noises emanating from within the room itself, we were well rested and up at the crack of dawn this morning.

We made our way up to the sixth floor of the hotel where we enjoyed the generous complimentary breakfast of toast and jam while taking in the spectacular views of the side wall of the building next door. Thus fortified we set of to explore San Francisco.

The first objective was to get to Pier 33 on the harbour where we picked up our tickets for the trip to Alactraz tomorrow. As you probably know, San Francisco is built on a series of hills so there were quite a few steep climbs and descents to negotiate along the way. After that we walked along the waterfront to Fisherman’s Wharf which, as the name suggests, used to be the centre of the local fishing industry – and it still is to an extent – although the wharf is now largely given over to cafes and gift shops. The local delicacy is Dungeness crab, of which more later.

We continued to follow the bay shore around towards the Golden Gate Bridge which took us through the Marina district, a very affluent yuppie enclave where very expensive houses look out across Marina Boulevard to Marina Green and, unsurprisingly, the Marina – where they all park their yachts. The area was full of joggers, cyclist and tourists, some of whom were in strange little yellow, two-stroke, three-wheeled cars which can be hired in town and give the occupants a running commentary on their route.

Having seen the bridge (which we will be riding over on our way out of here on Wednesday) and posed for the obligatory photograph we retraced our steps to Fisherman’s Wharf. Deciding we had had our exercise for the day we thought we were entitled to treat ourselves to a couple of sandwiches stuffed with Dungeness crab that we had noticed being sold at a stall earlier in the day. They turned out to be a massive disappointment as despite the amount of crab that was undoubtedly in them they only tasted of chives and mayonnaise. We noticed that even the seagulls who were harassing other diners seemed uninterested in what we had to offer!

After that we made our way back uphill and called in at the tramway museum which was fascinating. The streetcars are propelled by steel cables which run for miles under the streets and the winding gear still operates from the museum building.

We then stopped to quench our thirst at an Irish pub which sold mostly British/Irish imported brews but also had a couple of nice “domestic” beers. There was a slightly embarrassing misunderstanding when we came to settle up and thought that the barman was quoting us a price for the purchase of the freehold of the building. However he assured us that this was was the normal price for beer in the city and would have been significantly more had we indulged in exotic imported delicacies such as Newcastle Brown or Stella.

The rest of the day has been spent in a little light shopping and a meal in a restaurant in China Town. We were a bit disappointed (a word that seems to crop up quite often in relation to the food out here) that the variety and quality of Chinese food on offer seems very much the same as we would find back home. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with Chinese food in the UK but we had wondered if the large and long-established Chinese community out here might have offered more variety.

We are now back in the hotel room and listening to the sounds of police sirens and angry raised voices in the street outside. We may have to pop out in a minute and and ask them to keep the noise down……….