Friday 31 October 2014

368. Travel diary. San Francisco.


After our hectic trip around NYC we jetted to San Francisco. The city as a whole has a lot more of a chilled vibe compared to NYC and is a lot less urban. With a laid back feel, it was a lot more expensive whether your were eating or sight seeing. Although we managed to get around the city easily via the trams and buses (which you could sneak on for free) the layout out the city is rather spread out and with no real city centre a lot of travelling around was to be had. On our tight budget we managed to do a lot of things for real cheap or free. So below I will let you know what we got up to on our wonderful trip.

Free tour of the city
So we checked into another one of the "free tours by foot" company tours which is pay as you feel, this was a full on six hour tour for our first day in San fran. It helped us get our bearings to a new city so it was good to do at the beginning of our trip. Starting off at City hall it was a stunning building where Marilyn Monroe took her wedding pictures when marrying Joe, we infact witnessed two weddings that morning which showed how popular that place was. Really gorgeous architecture so definitely worth a visit. We then too a tour of the financial district which was a bit boring as there wasn't much to see. Had a little roam around Chinatown which is where the fortune cookie was originally invented, and visited the little old ladies who make them right I front of you. Pretty cool. Then we headed to the ferry building which is rather pretty get to see bay bridge from there. We ended up in fishermans wharf which is where all the piers are and lots restaurants are where everything is happening. Really nice round there. So we got around a lot of the city seeing the main areas.




Alcatraz
We booked our tickets in advance as this normal sells out a couple of weeks before hand but make sure you buy them either directly from the pier or from their website as we ended up paying $40 through a secondary website which we thought was their website. Pan years you take a ferry over all pretty straight forward really pretty little 15 min journey and such gorgeous weather (we were pretty lucky) and you get to the island. This annoying sheriff like man informs you on literally nothing other than where the toilets were but he yaps on for ages. We left and trekked up the island to the cells. You can get head sets which take you on a little tour. Really enjoyed this, learnt a lot about what went on and how they lived. Pretty scary stuff. You get great views of the city from the island though as well as gettin to see all the ruins left on the island. Really beautifully they've maintained it well. Definitely recommend.








Lombard Street
San Francisco is a very hilly place, like super steep, after one too many walks our calves and highs were dead so we took a cable car to Lombard street. This is quite a touristy thing to do now as only three lines remain. We were recommended to take the Powell on Hyde line as you get the best views, it's $6 for a journey but we managed to hop on the side for free. Hanging off the side was definitely the most fun way.The road is basically a wiggly, real famous and has a really crap story behind it. Man wanted to make it less dangerous for the cars going down the hill so trialed a wiggly road as it would be less steep but was too much effort so stopped. The end.



Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito

This day was a pretty full on day, we started off at sea view where all the fancy houses were and
walked to China beach, normally you can see the bridge from here by it was super misty. So we took a trail by the coast down to Golden Gate Bridge, a good 3-4 miles later we got there. Still foggy we rested for a bit and soon enough the bridge was slowly emerging from the mist. It was pretty incredible thing to watch. Within 15 minutes you could see the whole of the bridge, it was stunning! We were advised by many people too hire a bike and ride because it was just too much to walk, but the dare Devils we were, we walked. There were so many great views from the bridge but it was still pretty foggy in areas, the bridge was overwhelmingly big. Looking up it was super big and a beautiful piece of architecture. Once we reached the other side we were pretty impressed at how far we walked in the summer sun. Being the thrill seekers we were we then took another trek to Sausalito. A quaint little town in the Bay Area it has stunning views of San Francisco and gorgeous little restaurants on the shoreline. Having a spot of lunch admiring the views we took a ferry back to the ferry building. Normal price is $11 for the ferry but if you have a clipper card (like an Oyster card) it's only $5! Bargain.










No comments:

Post a Comment