Today we started out early with breakfast in the hostel, a continental breakfast in every sense of the word that I'm sure made our fellow hostellers feel at home, and then out the door by 9 am for a long day of sightseeing. We first headed to Union Square and saw the Dewey Monument that commemorated Admiral Dewey's victory in Manila Bay in 1898. The square was pretty empty so early in the morning as it is surrounded by high-end shops (Tiffany, Neiman Marcus, and the like). After a quick stroll around the square we headed down to Powell and Market to pick up the world famous Cable Cars.
We arrived at the Cable Car turn around to see a decent line that surprised us as it was pretty early
on a Monday. After a short wait we boarded our moving National Historic Monument and rode over Nob Hill and Russian Hill down to the Embarcadero and Fisherman's Wharf. At the wharf we made our way to the Alcatraz ferry only to find out that the next available ferry was on Friday. The guide books had said call in advance but had not said call a week in advance and again this is a Monday. I guess a lot of places are on Spring Break.Disappointed but undeterred we found a Bay Cruise that was leaving in a hour and got tickets. We then walked around and saw some of the historic ships to kill some time. We then boarded our Bay Adventure Cruise
and began a tour of the mouth of the bay. The ferry went out and under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz and Angel Island, the Ellis Island of the West. It was a good cruise, a little windy on the way out, and hit all the highlights of the bay. Most of the fog had burned off but the Golden Gate Bridge was still partially wrapped in it.After we returned to dry land we had fish and chips and clam chowder at Fisherman's Wharf. While eating lunch, the rest of the fog lifted off the bridge and Kristyn wanted to go demand that the boat take us back out so we could get better photos. I eventually convinced her that we would walk down the pier to get a better angle and this seemed somewhat acceptable. We went down the Hyde Street pier were there are a number of clipper ships from the early gold rush days of San Fran for the photo. Afterwards we headed over to Ghirardelli Square for a hot fudge sundae.
The next
site on our list involved us hiking up Nob Hill. While strenuous it was more impressive that they were actually able to build a city on these steep hills and while you may hear it talked about you must walk to the top of one the hills to truly appreciate how hilly the city is. Once at the top we stopped at Lombard street which is the world's crookedest street. This strange street consists of 10 switchbacks which were built to help the first automobiles ascend the steep incline. After watching some cars navigate down and a number of tourists almost get run over by standing for photos in the middle of the road we boarded another cable car and headed to Chinatown.We entered through the Dragon's Gate entrance into Chinatown and found store after
store of "tourist souvenirs." We walked down the main road for a number of blocks and then headed into the North Beach area which is the Little Italy of San Francisco. We stopped in Washington Square Park for a quick break and then tackled Telegraph Hill. At the top we rode a further 210 ft. to the top of the Coit Tower which provides
an awesome panorama of the whole city and surrounding Bay. After coming down form Telegraph Hill we tried to in vain to hail a cable car, it was rush hour and they were all crowded, and ended up hiking back over Russian Hill and Nob Hill back to out hostel and some well deserved rest.Tomorrow is another early day as we head to the Mendocino area and the day will include some kind of wildlife (either whales or horses).
Taylor
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