My Feet Got Sore in San Francisco!

 March 12, 2015

This morning before we head out to see the city, I call Alaska Airlines. This time, the lovely Cece answers the phone, commiserates with me how awful it would be to have fishy smelling luggage and promptly agrees to send replacement luggage to my hotel. She didn’t even need to see the old luggage, she just believed me. This was quite a satisfying solution to my problem. Alaska Airlines wins brownie points for this one!

Luggage problem solved, we are ready to hit the town. My research of what to do in San Francisco had mainly consisted of asking everyone we know what their favourite thing to do in San Francisco was. As you can imagine, this question had wide and varied answers! We decided to see what we could see in a circle route to and from our hotel that would end with a meet up with some friends who were also in San Francisco.

We picked up some protein bars and water from the Walgreens across the street (very handy when you are staying in a hotel!) and headed up one of the first of many hills today. We had not gone more than two blocks when I saw my first photo opportunity of the day. I can’t even explain it… so I’ll just show you.

Enough said 😉

After we passed this cultural icon we headed towards Lombard Street. We walked up and down … and up and down…  and up and down streets admiring the houses. The houses are all attached (no side yards here), which left the King wondering aloud what the farthest distance was that he could run going from rooftop to rooftop. This just shows how we think differently… this would have NEVER crossed my mind!

The houses are quite unique and ornate looking. It was kind of a cross between an Art Deco and European style. Random strangers we talked to later told us that you can’t buy a place for under 1 million in this town, and even though there is rent control he didn’t think you could rent a place for under 3000 a month!

At last we made it to Lombard Street. This is the street you see in movies that does the zig zag down.

It was shorter than I imagined, about one short block… and in the end turned out just to be a zig zag road. Okay, we can cross that off the list of things to see in the world. We took the obligatory pictures, watched tourists standing in the middle of the road risking getting run over, and then carried on our way.

Looking up Lombard Street

Next we headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf which on most websites was listed as touristy and don’t bother. I think, perhaps, that what people are forgetting, is that tourists like touristy stuff! 😉

On our way we came across a tiny little park. It looks like it used to be someone’s backyard and they gifted it to the city as a “zen park” area. It was very peaceful.

So we arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf, and looked at all the stuff. There were regular touristy shops, restaurants, etc and then we made a lunch stop. I had read somewhere that most of the restaurants were just okay, but that the Blue Mermaid had great chowder, so we decided to look for it. We both like a good bowl of seafood chowder… and it seems like a San Francisco kind of thing to do! We found it right at the end of a little place called “Cannery Row”. I’m not sure what that means but we saw a reference to Del Monte and our inferring that there used to be a Del Monte Cannery in the beautiful old brick buildings. The chowder was amazing. There were 6 different kinds of chowder, including my favourite, the New England Chowder. You could get a sampler, a cup, a bowl or a bread bowl. We decided to get a bread bowl of the New England chowder and share a Caesar Salad (look mom, we are eating our vegetables!). The salad was nothing to write home about (or I guess to write a blog about), but the chowder was delicious. Steve thinks it is his favourite so far, I think I’m ranking it #2 behind the chowder we had in P.E.I.

Next we followed Mike’s tip and headed over to Ghirardelli Square. This is basically another little market of shops overlooking the water. The chocolate shop is the main attraction for me (and countless others). As you walk in they give you a little sample of a caramel chocolate mini. MMMMM! If I didn’t think I was buying any before, the sample changed my mind. We started out thinking we would get one, but Steve likes dark and I like milk, which brought us up to two. Then we wanted to try the peppermint bark, which brought us up to three. So when we went to pay for it, the nice lady told us that peppermint bark was buy one get one free, and if we didn’t take another we were basically not taking free chocolate. That seems ridiculous! Who wouldn’t take free chocolate???

Therefore we ended up with 4 large treats… luckily we were getting lots of steps in today to wear it off! She also said we could save one and give it to someone for their birthday. What she didn’t realize is that we can’t just not eat chocolate if it is in our possession. It’s impossible. Neither of us comprehend the two words “leftover chocolate”. Also guess who’s birthday is coming up next week? MINE! I’ll take the extra chocolate! 😉

Next we continued walking along the waterfront. We pass by a little park, look at Alcatraz Island in the distance and watch crazy people swimming in the bay. The water can not possibly be warm enough for swimming… but there were several people out there swimming back and forth.

Side note: I was reading somewhere, questions that people ask native San Franciscans… one hilarious question was, “How can we sleep at Alcatraz?”. What???? Why would you want to sleep in an abandoned prison???? End of side note.

There are lots of piers that have various different shops, businesses and attractions on them. San Francisco really knows how to take advantage of their waterfront.

Saw this little restaurant at the end of Pier 39

We knew that if you got to Pier 39 you could usually see sea lions basking in the sun on the floating docks. We weren’t disappointed, there were tons of them barking, basking and doing whatever else sea lions do.

We walked through the touristy shops on Pier 39, looked at all the stuff and then carried on to our next point, which was a walk up Coit Tower. (This was a tip from Phil.)

You can drive up to Coit Tower, there is a small parking lot… but we decided we would walk up (well we didn’t have a car anyway!).

Side note: This is not really a city to visit with a car. Parking is ridiculous, and hotels charge exorbitant prices. Our hotel had a sign out that parking was $59 per day!!! End of side note.

So we head along the roads I had google mapped. It didn’t really work out, but we were in the general area. We jogged (we didn’t actually jog…that’s just an expression) over a few blocks here and there and found the steps going up. This is a lovely beautiful way to walk up. On the way we talked to several people, some from Vancouver Island (small world!), and some locals who assured us we were going the right way. One guy even told us that sometimes you can see parrots as you walk up this way, but we didn’t see any. This walk is do-able, but not for the faint of heart or mobility challenged. There are lovely stairs with railings all the way up… but it is a long way up!

The stairs are not THIS nice all the way up!

When you get to the top you can walk around the outside of the tower and go inside to look at the murals for free.

Enjoying the view from the main floor of the tower.

If you want to take the elevator to the top of the viewing tower it was $8 per person. I think it’s worth it, especially if you have walked all the way up that hill you may as well go as far up as you can… also, as a bonus they stamp your hand with an "I 💜 SF" stamp.

Enjoying the view from the top of the Coit Tower

The view from the top was incredible.

A 360 degree view of San Francisco.

I was so busy looking out that I didn’t look up to realize that there was no roof on the tower!

Conveniently we weren’t there on a rainy day 😁

At this point the next plan was to walk to China Town and meet Skye, but our timing did not work out, so we just headed back to the hotel. I wanted to see Chinatown at night anyway, because the taxi driver told me it was lit up with lanterns (more on this later).

We take a little rest at the hotel (the feet and calves are feeling sore from all that walking) and eat some of our delicious chocolate!

Just for the record, our brand new luggage was waiting for us in our room upon our arrival! Thank you Cece and Alaska Airlines!

After a sufficient rest we decide to walk over and see China Town all lit up. We found it, but it wasn’t lit up. We saw no lanterns, and the gates to China Town were not even lit up. Perhaps we’re biased, but China Town in Victoria is much more beautiful to look at. I enjoyed the walk anyway, and admired the sparkly sidewalks again.

We decided to find some food even though it was getting late. We ended up at the Marriott across the street from our hotel because they were advertising a wild mushroom pizza with arugula. It was called something like “Bin 405”… or 504… I can’t remember. It was basically the bar in the lobby of the hotel, but it was delicious. I would definitely go back.

I had a nice glass of Prosecco, then we had some parmesan fries and grilled bread with pesto sauce and warm burrata cheese. We finished off the meal with the wild mushroom pizza with arugula which was delicious.

Conveniently this restaurant was right across from our hotel, because shortly thereafter I promptly fell asleep. Over 20,000 steps and over 75 flights of stairs logged on my Fitbit today!