After a five hour flight from Hawaii with Alaska Airlines, we arrived into San Jose airport in the early evening. Our usual trick of taking the cheapest flight possible to our next destination meant that we then had an hour and a half car journey before we reached San Fransisco.
For once though, we had no issue with this at all as we had booked the hire car of all hire cars for our west coast road trip – a Ford Mustang cabriolet!
Despite having an amazing hire car and the drive not being too bad into San Francisco, our first night turned out to be anything but idillic.
After driving round and round the streets near our hostel looking for a parking space we eventually found one after about half an our of aimless driving in the dark. Frustrated but relieved to have found one, we grabbed our bags and headed into our hostel.
“After a hearty lunch we took to the streets again and walked up to see Lombard Street, a bizarre small road with eight hairpin turns on it!”
Our limited backpacker budget meant we didn’t have grand room plans for our two night stay, in fact all our daily budget could afford were two beds in a six person dorm room. However our very late arrival in the day meant that we were the last people to check in and the only two beds they had left available were in completely different rooms!
To say we weren’t impressed was an understatement but no amount of complaining from Rich was going to change the fact that we had to take the only two beds left.
The following morning Rich and I headed out on foot to explore all that San Fransisco had to offer. We started with a walk around Union Square and roamed around the streets, passing some funny looking face statues on our way down to the waterfront.
Although the weather wasn’t great and the sun was hiding behind a thick blanket of cloud, at Pier 39 we saw dozens of sea lions “sun bathing”. They were all snuggled up together, laying over one another in fact! While it looked nice and relaxing the noise some of them made was anything but, it turns out sea lions can make quite a racket.
For lunch we headed to Boudin, home of huge sourdough buns big enough to eat your lunch out of!
After a hearty lunch we took to the streets again and walked up to see Lombard Street, a bizarre small road with eight hairpin turns on it! On our way we passed one of the iconic street trams, something very useful for getting around the city as San Francisco is a very hilly place.
From Lombard Street we continued on to Washington Square, with the imposing Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church standing impressively at it’s side.
“The following morning we packed our bags and set off in the car to see possibly the greatest icon of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge.”
We then walked over to the colourful houses collectively called the Painted Ladies, striking in their traditional beauty and certainly lovely to look at when passing by.
We had walked a lot of miles around San Fransisco and so treated ourselves to a couple of drinks in a little bar near our hostel before retiring for the evening.
The following morning we packed our bags and set off in the car to see possibly the greatest icon of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity to see it at it’s best angle, we first headed to Marshall Beach. A beautiful place where you can watch the rhythmical waves washing ashore in front of the bridge while seeing it’s full expanse across the bay.
Next, we moved on to Fort Point to get a closer view of the bridge before driving over it to get a view of the bridge from above at Battery Spencer.
Having seen the bridge from below, above, beside and on it, our sightseeing in San Fransisco came to and end and we headed off to Yosemite National Park.
Lambs on the loose 