When we arrived on Wednesday, the first thing we did after eating lunch was meet our friend downtown and walk through Chinatown. It was cool seeing all the Chinese buildings and signs. After that, we took the bus to one of the most famous spots in San Francisco: Alamo Square. This is where the opening sequence was filmed for the tv show Full House. The famous Steiner street houses run along the east side of Alamo Square. Seeing all the old Victorian-style homes was cool.
On Friday we did most of the touristy things we were planning on doing. First we rode the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf, where we ate lunch at Boudin's. After that we walked along the waterfront to Pier 39, one of the major shopping areas nearby. One of the cooler things to see at Pier 39 are all the sea lions that congregate there. About a hundred of them sit on the docks there and make noise all day. There isn't much else to do at Pier 39 besides browse around some of the little shops there. I did want to go to one specific place though, the San Francisco Music Box Company. The last time I was in San Francisco, I bought a Beatles music box that plays "And I Love Her." I wanted to go again this time to see if they had any new Beatles music boxes, but I didn't see any.
After that, we went to do one of the things I wanted to do the most on the trip: eat ice cream at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. They have old equipment on display in the store in the process of making chocolate, which is pretty neat. We ate a brownie hot fudge sundae and barely finished it. We also went to the gift shop to look around some, where they gave us free samples of the new flavor, milk chocolate with peanut butter filling. I managed to eat my sample somehow, but Troy saved his for later. There are other small shops in Ghirardelli Square, but most of them were closed due to major renovation of the Square.
Near there is a small beach and a pier that extends into the bay that offers a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. We spent some time on the pier watching the blankets of fog roll over the bridge and across the bay past Alcatraz. Fog covered the entire city after a few hours. After that we walked through Fort Mason, which also offers good views of the bridge and the water. Then we called our friend for directions to a bus that would take us to the Golden Gate Bridge so that we could walk on it. It was neat walking across the bridge in the fog.
Other touristy places we went to included Lombard street at night, Yerba Buena Gardens, the Martin Luther King Memorial, and the Ferry Building. The Ferry Building was recently renovated and now has several shops inside and vendors on the street outside, along with a fountain. It was kind of similar to Pike Place Market, but not nearly as good. Most of the shops inside were pretty upscale, one of which was a wine-tasting bar. I did enjoy going on the other side of the Ferry Building toward the water, where you can see the Oakland Bay Bridge. On Monday, we briefly went to City Hall and the Civic Center, but there wasn't that much to do there.
It would have been nice to see Lombard street during the day and I would have liked to see Ghirardelli Square again, but it's hard to fit everything into so little time. Overall though, I'm happy with the places we were able to see.
We moved to Seattle in February 2008 and shared blog posts and photos during our first few years in Seattle.
- Troy & Lesley H
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Trip to San Francisco: Famous Places
Posted by Lesley at 4:00 PM
Labels:
pictures,
travel,
travel: SF
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