San Francisco

5^th October 

The 113 miles to San Francisco took nearly 4 hours.  Our route took us over the mountains using some very, very twisty roads with numerous switch-backs and hair-pin corners.  We passed near the Napa Valley and several vine-yards, which looked very inviting.  We finally arrived at an RV park claiming to be the ‘closest to San Francisco’.  The temperature was 30C and not a cloud to be seen in the sky.

6^th October – San Francisco

We took the ferry across the San Francisco Bay.  We passed San Quentin prison and then Alcatraz Island with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.  We were not able to visit Alcatraz as it is part of the National Park Service and hence currently closed.

We spent the morning wandering along Fisherman’s Warf enjoying the morning sun and people watching.  The whole place was really busy and there was quite a buzz going on.  We had lunch of clam chowder served in sour dough bread bowl, sitting in the sun listening to the street entertainment. 

The queue for the cable trolley bus up the hill was too long so we walked up to the next Stop and got on the trolley which took us up to the top of the “Crookedest Street” – Lombard Street.  This street
winds its way down the very steep hill and there were police at the top directing traffic that wanted to drive down the tight switch-backs.

We then got back on the cable trolley bus and carried on to China Town, going up and down some of the 47 hills of San Francisco.  Unfortunately we missed the street parade that afternoon.  On the next trolley we carried on through
Union Square which had some terrific looking shops to the end-of-the-line where we watched them turning the trolley on the turntable.

Our next trolley bus took us to the Street Fair in the Castro district (GLBT community area).  After a short time wandering around we decided to continue our travels around the city so we sought out the nearest metro station and journeyed on to Golden Gate Park for the Bluegrass Festival. 

Golden Gate Park was a lovely spot and we sat amongst the crowds on the grass in the sun listening to some bands playing at one of several stages that had been set up for this free event.  There were thousands of people here and most seemed to have travelled by bicycle as there were thousands of bikes parked up everywhere we looked.

We finally left the park just after 5pm and it took us at least half an hour to walk half the length of the Park.  It is a very large park and we could easily have spent a full day here exploring the various places such as the Japanese Tea Rooms and the Conservatory of Flowers.

We caught a bus back to the ferry port and managed to catch the last but one ferry back to our destination at Larkspur.  As we travelled back across the bay we were treated to a most colourful
sunset as a back-drop to the Golden Gate Bridge. We chatted to a couple of ladies on the ferry and they recommended some local eateries.

7^th October – The Golden Gate Bridge

We spent the morning chatting with a family from Australia that we had met on the ferry yesterday morning. They just happened to be in the same RV park as we were and directly opposite us. Their
five children kept us entertained for quite a time.
Later we went down to Sausalito for lunch at a place recommended by the ladies on the ferry yesterday evening. 
We then took the car along the road leading into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  Some of the roads were shut but we were able to get to some spots with great views over the Golden Gate Bridge.