San Francisco

At the end of the Big Sur drive lies San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Driving in, through “Silicon Valley,” we passed Mountain View, home of Google, Cupertino, home of Apple, and Palo Alto, home of facebook, among others - reminding Jo of that thing in the distant past called “work.” ;) We even spent some time in Palo Alto and walked around the campus of Stanford University (lovely if not a bit sterile/well-manicured).

Having had our fill of Silicon Valley, we drove into San Francisco (“SF”). The weather was glorious, but as we reached the Golden Gate bridge, the ocean layer, which had followed us up the coast, took refuge over the bridge and the city itself as it often does during the summer months.

We didn't get a clear view of the bridge during our stay but even shrouded in mist it is an amazing sight. As you can see from the plaque by the bridge, a heck of a lot of cable was used to build it back in 1937. 

   

After taking in the shrouded bridge, we headed into the city, parked the car, and set off on foot to explore. SF, unlike most American cities, has decent public transport and is, despite the hills, a great City to walk around. We visited the Marina and Fisherman's Wharf areas (tourist central...) and checked out the infamous cable cars. The city still has four cable car routes, the most famous of which takes you from Fisherman's Wharf over a few hills into the center of town with some spectacular views. From the top you get great views of Alcatraz in the distance. Unfortunately, all the tours out to the island prison were booked, so we had to settle for the view.  

Cable cars aside, no visit to SF is complete without walking or driving the Lombard Street switchbacks. This stretch of Lombard Street wiggles it's way down a very steep and narrow hill over ten turns at a 27% incline. It's quite amusing to see the hordes of tourists line up to take pictures of the hill and the cars descending it as well as traffic police trying to manage the entry way at the top. As you can imagine, the queues to drive down it get quite long and can seriously disrupt traffic. The views from the top are worth it though.

After a quick walk around the Haight-Ashburry area (formerly hippie, now also tourist, central), we headed up to Napa for some wine tasting. Along the way, we stopped in Berkeley and walked around the University of California campus – as you can imagine, the polar opposite of Stanford's:

- Nick & Jo