After two flights heading north, and a brief lunch stop at Houston airport we arrived late afternoon at San Francisco airport for the final leg of our Americas travels. We’ve used Uber a lot on our trip, but in most countries to date it appears to be ‘tolerated’ as opposed to the proposed method of travel; it proved to be a bit different in its home state of California with huge signs directing you to a specific Uber collection area, made for a very easy transfer to our Airbnb in Noe Valley. This is a simply lovely neighbourhood, beautiful well kept houses, clean streets and so many different plants in the tiny front gardens. The only downside, as with everywhere in San Fran, are the hills which are plentiful!

 

After dumping our bags we headed to the closest supermarket, a Whole Foods, where the food is organic with prices to match… you almost need to just turn a blind eye to the price tags whilst picking up cereals and fruits…Californian wine being the best value item fortunately! Home for a light dinner and bed in our new home.

 

We took the next day to explore, starting with a steep hike up behind the neighbourhood to the viewpoint of Twin Peaks. You could see for miles right out across the bay and our first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the hillside was an enormous pink triangle which we learnt was a symbol which the Nazis made homosexuals wear in the concentration camps. A timely bit of history with Pride celebrations happening this weekend. From here we headed down through Castro which was prepping for Pride, so so colourful, and finally onto ChinaTown for a well deserved lunch of dim sum. On our walk downtown we had diverted from the main Market St to Mission, which whilst only 100m away was a world away with lots of homeless people, lots of evident mental health issues and substance abuse. It was a real reminder of how life in a city can diverge so much.

 

Late afternoon, it was then time to head back to the airport to meet Grandparents Wren who are flying in to spend a week with us. It was lovely to see them at the half way point of our travels. They’d survived their flight and everyone was pleased to have an early night after dinner.

 

Refreshed next morning, we walked down (less up today thankfully!) to Golden Gate Park which we had fond memories of when we travelled here on our last world trip. Then the girls were just 1 and 3 and required a close eye (and lots of pushing on the swings); this time they just scampered away on their own to find their favourite parts of the Koret Quarter playground, namely the concrete slides. I still found these quite scary as children flew down them! A more peaceful next stop with a stroll round the Japanese Garden, lots of lovely bushes, shrubs and massive koi carp. Next to the Gardens is the de Young Museum which has a super viewpoint from its 9th floor across the park and the city. After all the walking we had lunch in a cafe garden on Haight and headed home for a well deserved rest! The grandparents were holding up well with the jet leg so we squeezed in a beer and glass of vino locally (not sure everyone enjoyed their snack of chilli fried sprouts!) and headed home for dinner.

 

Our last day of exploring San Fran saw us separating, with the girls, Stu and Jim spending the morning visiting Alcatraz, and Katie and Wendy getting their steps in strolling across the city to Fisherman’s Wharf. We ticked off some sights on the way, stopping at Madame Doubtfire’s house (or the Painted Ladies as the row of houses is known); the peace pagoda in JapanTown; walking down alongside Lombard Street with all its twists and turns (reminiscent of a smaller version of the road down from the Chilean immigration); and seeing the sea lions sunning themselves in the wharf (massive compared to the ones in the Galapagos but thankfully less smelly then I remember from our last trip!).

 

The most amazing thing about Alcatraz is that it was only open as a prison for 30 years before it was closed, it didn’t have any redeeming qualities that in any way demonstrated an approach to rehabilitation. That is a pretty short lifetime in the history of prisons, yet 60 years since it has closed its doors, and it is still one of the iconic places to visit. Maybe it was the notoriety of some of the inmates that has catapulted it into the history books. It sounds as though it was a pretty tough place to be, and even harder place to escape from, the audio tour gave some real insight and brought to life what it must have been like to have been housed there. After a good old nose around, which the girls found fascinating, even more so when one of the last surviving inmates was in the giftshop doing a book signing, it was time to board the short ferry ride back to the mainland in time for lunch.

 

After all that walking, we met up at a San Fran institution, the Franciscan restaurant, which has stunning views across the bay to Alcatraz through huge picture windows. Crab was very much the order of the day and we ate our fill (and covered our faces and hands!). Our last tourist stop was to catch the historical streetcar on our way home, very bumpy and the girls got to ride on the outside much to their joy. Stu and I took advantage of the grandparents being here and had a night out (hooray!) at a jazz club in town. It’s always difficult to know where to go out in a new city but we had a result here with the Mr Tipples Jazz Club. Very cool music, great cocktails, and dim sum even better than we had in ChinaTown made for a relaxed evening out. Headed home for our last night in San Francisco before we head north to wine country. It’s been a great few days, very easy and relaxing, and great to catch up with the grandparents.

S, K, L & H x