Day 2: San Francisco

So today is our first proper day of the holiday.
Because our heads are still in UK time, we our course all wake up at 4am assuming we have had a huge long lie - but 8 hours time difference can take a few days to get over.


So as we were awake so early and had really rushed our visit yesterday - it was decided that we would spend the day in the city by the bay and take a tour around its attractions.


We drove back towards the Golden Gate Bridge - but on this morning it was completely shrouded in fog as you can see below.

San Francisco can be seen over the top of the fog on the Golden Gate Bridge

However once we were in the city yet again the skies were blue and the temperature warm.


The view here is of Fisherman's Wharf with a foggy Alcatraz prison in the background.

And this is of the famous Ghiradelli Chocolate factory where we rarely buy much but always gratefully receive their free samples!
But the chocolate is very good.

Our first trip of the day was on the famous San Francisco Trolley.


One of the most popular routes is the "Powell & Hyde Street" route which starts here at the beach and goes all the way to Union Square over the steep San Francisco streets.


The trolleys are turned at this terminus on a turntable ready to set off back up the steep Hyde Street hill.

The best bit for me about the trolleys is hanging off the side as it trundles up the streets ringing the bell at every intersection.
As you can see from the picture above -  my space is reserved in front of Laura ready for the journey around the city.

San Francisco got it's trolley system courtesy of an Englishman called Andrew Hallidie who witnessed a bad accident where the heavy load and steep hills caused five horses to be dragged to their death.
So he set about developing and building a wire cable system that would allow the horses to have support and not be required to drag the heavy loads up the hills.
The first tram was opened in 1873 and they have been there ever since. 

After arriving in Union Square, we decided to take an organised tour on an open top double decker bus which would take us to all the interesting places and save us having to keep parking he car.


And so we joined a tour....

The next two pictures are of the San Francisco City Hall which was designed to have the same architectural spirit as St Peters in Rome.


You can see the very European influences.

San Francisco has many Victorian era houses which are still preserved and worth millions of $ today. They tend to be in the very expensive neighbourhoods such as Pacific Heights where these ones are found.

This is the Oakland Bridge which was built around the same time as The Golden Gate bridge but has none of the same prestige that it's sister structure is associated with

This is the San Francisco Ferry Building on The Embarcaderro. This clock tower survived the earthquake in 1906 and also in 1989 and is now over 100 years old.

Part of the tour takes us back over The Golden Gate bridge which as we had already seen earlier in the day was shrouded in fog.


Well several hours later - nothing had changed as you can see from the pictures below.

But as we crossed the second half of the bridge the sun came out and the temperature soared.

The fog that sweeps into San Francisco during the hot summer months is actually formed out in the Pacific Ocean and when it meets the hot air on the land it condenses and forms these strange fog patterns around the headlands where the bridge is built.




So after crossing back to the southern side of the bridge, we continue our tour of the city.


You can see some of the highlights in the pictures below.

This is the entrance to Chinatown which is a very big part of San Francisco life

This is Francis Ford Coppola's restaurant which is in an authentic old building on the edge of the Italian district.


Coppola is of course most famous for directing The Godfather and its sequels and legend has it that the script was finalised in the cafe below the restaurant before it was unleashed on the public in 1972.

The bus dropped us off at Fisherman's Wharf in time for us to have a late lunch.

This is a very crowded and popular tourist area where there are boats ready to take you to Alcatraz or on a tour of the bay under the Golden Gate.

But for us it was time to find somewhere to eat after our tours all over the city.

The area is a shoppers paradise and it is possible to buy all sorts of souvenirs as well as eat and drink from a huge variety of different types of food.


There are even fruit stalls selling fresh Californian fruits which in the warm sunshine look very tempting as you can see here.

And so we re-boarded a red double decker and headed out the Pacific Heights part of the city to see a row of houses known as "The Painted Ladies" which have been preserved from the Victorian ere and are a popular landmark in San Francisco - and appear in many Hollywood films.

There were thousands of this style of house built in the second half of the 19th century and were painted in the bright colours you can see in these pictures. However many of these were destroyed in the earthquake of 1906 mainly by the fires that spread throughout the city in the aftermath of the quake.


Those that survived were painted battleship grey during the 1st and 2nd World Wars because of lack of supplies and the bright colours fell our of fashion. However in the 1960's a few residents decided to paint their old houses in the old style of 100 years earlier - unbelievably much to the disgust of other residents - but the fashion soon caught on and by the 1970's the now famous houses were returned to their bright pastels.

The views over the old Victorian houses of the modern day city make quite a contrast of the old and the new.

Whilst we were in the park overlooking "The Painted Ladies" there was a large film crew attempting to shoot a wedding scene for a new film to be released next year we assume called "The Five Year Engagement"

Not that we will be in the film - even as passers by, because we had a trolley to catch.....

And so our day in San Francisco was coming to a close and we headed back across The Golden Gate bridge, left the fog behind and back towards Napa Valley.

On the highway north towards Napa we noticed this great scene looking back towards the city.


The fog was sweeping in over the bay and from this vantage point it looks as if the city is peeking out over the top of the fog bank.

Tomorrow we will explore the wine country of Napa Valley.