We just got back from San Francisco a few days ago and we had a blast! To my surprise San Francisco is much like Europe, small shops that are tightly packed, lots of people walking around and using public transportation, old and new buildings everywhere and most importantly, lots of diversity. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the weather being mostly overcast 80% of the time but to my understanding that is standard for the Bay area.
Here is a break down of our trip…
Night 1:
Got into SFO around 9:30pm after a really smooth and fast flight from San Diego on Virgin America. Here is a photo I took from my seat.
The first night we stayed at Travelodge in South San Francisco for $57. The price was great, the room…. Not so much. They had a list of Security Tips that I will add later but you will get a kick out of them. They were absurd!
Day 1, Night 2:
We took Bart into the city and got off at Powell Street. This is where we met up with Ashley’s friends, got in the car and headed to Sam’s Cafe in Tiburon. Sams is a cafe/bar/restaurant located over the Golden Gate bridge on what I think is the North East side of San Francisco. Their Sam’s burger and margaritas were great, I highly suggest them.
After 4 hours at Sam’s and a nice sun burn on my face we headed back to the city to a friends house in Burlingame. There we hung out and rested for a couple hours then got ready and headed out to Dinner at Calzone’s Pizza Cucina in the city. Calzone’s had some mojitos I have never heard of including a Blue Cuban mojito and a Russian mojito both of which were really good and strong! We had a Lasagna Calzone which was pretty good but I’d like to try some of their other plates sometime… Can any locals suggest anything??
After dinner we went to a bar and had a few drinks with the people we were with then headed to a friends house over the Bay Bridge (not sure of the exact city). We stayed at a friends house Saturday night…
Day 2, Night 3:
We hung out at a friends house Sunday morning, went and got some bagels and Starbucks, watched some football and then got ready to head into town. We met up with more friends at the Palace of Fine Arts and walked around the beautiful architecture and took lots of pictures. Here is one of my favorite:
After visiting the Palace of Fine Arts we went to a bar/restaurant in the city (I forgot the name) to hang out and watch the Chargers game! This no name restaurant had a great margarita too!
After watching the Chargers beat the Oakland Raiders and spending a good 2 hours at the no name bar we were getting pretty tired and ready to check into our room at Parc55 Hotel. After checking in we passed out for a good hour because we were exhausted. After waking up from a refreshing nap we headed out into the city in search of a sweater for Ashley. She didnt want to be seen wearing the same sweater in Sunday and Monday’s photos. :) We went to the 3 story tall Forever 21… Yay my favorite store!! Kidding. But we did find her some clothes here so that was a big plus! After that we just walked around the city for a while and then headed back to the room to rest up for tomorrow!
Day 3 , Night 4:
The last and final day! We woke up, got ready and packed up. Went downstairs, checked our luggage with the bellman and headed to the Cable Car Station. Here is a photo for reference…
It took about 30 minutes to get onto one of these but it was well worth the wait because you cant go to San Francisco without riding the famous Cable Cars! We took the Cable Car from Powell to Beach and Hyde. Mind you we had to be at Pier 33 at 11am for the Alcatraz departure and by the time we arrived at the end it was 10:42am. At this point we started power walking which quickly turned into running! We ran a good 10 blocks and somehow made it by 10:58am. we were tired, sweaty and our legs ached but we didn’t care, WE MADE IT!
The boat ride to Alcatraz was only about 15 minutes which was much shorter then I anticipated but it was a much needed rest for us after our triathlon. After arriving to Alcatraz we got some water and then headed out and started exploring. After about 20 minutes of exploring on our own we headed over to the audio tour building. This was my first going on an audio tour and all I can say is that it was great! You can go at your own pace, start and stop the tour whenever you want and the stories you hear on these audio tours are incredible. They describe everything in absolute detail so you really get a sense of what it was like there back in the day. Here is a photo of us with the headphones…
Even though Alcatraz is a big tourist spot and there are usually a lot of people there it was well worth it in my opinion.
After we got back to shore we took a walk over to Fisherman’s Wharf and ate at Bubba Gumps. Their food was great and the location was even better. Looking over the water we had a view of Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge, it really was a great seat.
After lunch we took Bart back to the hotel and got our luggage then headed back to Bart and headed to SFO. A short hour and twenty minute flight and we were back in San Diego by 7:40pm.
San Francisco is a massive city and I really think you need a lot more then 3 days to see it all but I have no complaints, the trip was absolutely wonderful.
Here are some other photos from our trip…
This post is tagged san francisco, travel
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