San Francisco Review

Sunday photos

On Sunday, we decided to visit Ryan’s High School friend, Mike Strohman, who is at Stanford getting his advanced degree. It took us four hours to get there, because we got completely lost while trying out the public transportation for the first time. We purchased 3-day passes for the public transportation, and we got used to being on busses, trains and trollies. But, we ended up getting to the train station and taking the CalTrain out. Mike took us on a great tour, including his lab and the campus. It was really a lovely campus. We went for supper at a DELICIOUS Mexican restaurant in Palo Alto.

Monday started with another trolley ride (which never ceased being fun). We visited Chinatown and looked around in the morning. Then, we went to Little Italy and visited City Light bookstore. We ended up walking down to Pier 7 from there, which has a beautiful view of the Bay and Bay Bridge. We ate at the Fog City diner, which must be a pretty popular place. We ended up walking to the Aquarium at Pier 39 and going through some of the stores while we were waiting for our tour of Alcatrez. We took the tour of Alcatrez, which was one of our favorite parts of the trip. It was really spooky, but interesting! That evening, we walked around some more and ate supper at a pizza place on Pier 39. We were totally exhausted from all of the walking!

We started Tuesday with a trolley ride to Golden Gate Park. The park is a few miles long and we walked part of it. Then, we took a bus to the opposite end of the park to see the beach. After eating lunch at Golden Gate park, we headed back to Market Street and walked around there. We visited the Ferry Building and Coit Tower, which was an awesome view. We also went to Lombard Street (the “crookedest” street). We visited Ghiradelli Square and finished the day with dinner and a night time trolley ride.

We missed the hotel breakfast on Wednesday, so we ate at a delicious place down the street. We then visited the cable car museum, by cable car of course. That was pretty fun and FREE! Next, we took the ferry to Sausalito in the afternoon. We ate a late lunch at a restaurant right on the water. The weather was much warmer here, and we walked around in the different shops on the water. When we got back to San Francisco, we visited Boudin, the oldest continuous business in San Francisco. They make sourdough bread. We toured the bread “factory” and learned more about that. It was pretty neat. We at at the restaurant there, and shared a sourdough pizza and chili in a sourdough bread bowl.

We rented a car and checked out of our San Francisco hotel on Thursday. First, we stopped by the Golden Gate bridge to see it up close and get photos. Then, we drove to Muir Woods. We ate lunch at Muir Woods and walked around for several hours. The trees were huge. This was Ryan’s favorite part of the trip, since he has an obsession with trees. =) Then, we headed to Napa. We stopped in downtown Napa and ate supper at a great Italian restaurant. Then, we found there was a Chef’s Market going on. So, we stuck around and had a few glasses of wine downtown. There were tons of stores, wineries and restaurants with tents set up. There was also a band playing. It was great fun!

We visited two wineries on Friday. We went to St. Supery and Grgich. Both were nice. We learned a lot at St. Supery, through their self-guided tour. We also tasted their wine. We drove to Grgich, which was PACKED. We also did a tasting here. Then, we drove to a few different lakes in Napa Valley, which were beautiful. From there, we drove back. On the way, we decided to stop in Oakland and go to a baseball game. We rooted for the A’s!

On our final day, we rode around the city of San Francisco to see the things we missed. We went to Alamo Square to the see the “Full House” houses. We went to the Farmer’s Market, which was HUGE! We loved walking around it. We stopped by the bison area at the Golden Gate park, which we hadn’t seen. Then, we ate lunch at a Chicago pizza place, which was awesome and walked aroudn the shops by the Civic Center. We also saw Mission Dolores and went up to Twin Peaks to see the highest point in San Francisco. We finished the day with a trip to the San Francisco Zoo.

We loved the area so much and would definitely go back, if possible! Enjoy our photos!