Our final stop ( 😦 ) of our road trip was the same as our starting point: San Francisco. We stayed in the Grant Hotel, which isn’t the best place to stay, I’m sure. But the locations was doable to go by foot to some parts of the city. On the other hand, according to someone on the ‘inside of the town’ ;-), we were very close to a dangerous neighborhood of the city and next to the hotel there was a guy strip club – with their famous show ‘Touch my junk’ :-). The breakfast was sober, and you had to pay for everything except bad coffee.
On our way to our hotel, we stopped at Twin Peaks to get a view over the city. We parked our car somewhere below a hill and climbed up. When we had enough pictures of the windy view, we went back and saw a police car standing beside our rental car. O-ow… what did we do know? Wouldn’t we be able to leave the US without a fine? With a little heart we kept climbing back down and waited to hear what they wanted. But… they only wanted to warn us not to leave our car here unattended, because there were a lot of thefts in this neighborhood, something we actually already thought. There was a dodgy feeling that crept upon us the moment we left our car in the first place. Nothing happened thought, but we were grateful the policemen kept an eye out for us :-). After arriving in our hotel we decided to start exploring the city.
We started with Chinatown, which was close by our hotel. Not so special as I thought it would be… but okay, you have to see it I guess. After that we went searching for Lombard Street, famous for a steep one-block section with eight hairpin turns. You can also drive through Lombard Street, but that goes really slow and you will be on thousands of pictures as well :-).
The next day we walked the steep hills to get to Alamo Square, famous for the many Victorian houses. Another stop along the way was the Buena Vista Park. No soul to be found here, and also not worth visiting. Via the Golden Gate Park we went towards Land’s End to get a view over the coastline. I have to say, up until that moment I still wasn’t impressed by the city. But… at Land’s End we met with an acquaintance of the boyfriend and he showed us some parts of the city that made us really appreciate it. First we went to Sausalito, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. You can easily go here by bike as well! In Sausalito you can take a ferry back to the mainland – or you can use your bike to get back as well ;-). After Sausalito, our driver of the moment took us to Mission Dolores Park where we got a beautiful view over San Francisco, together with the smell of weed. After enjoying the view, we rushed towards Berkeley University, because there’s a nice viewpoint over there as well. After seeing almost every side of San Francisco, we went to Stanford University and walked around the campus for a bit. I have to say, the universities here are so different from those in Belgium :-). I kind of understand why people want to study here. After our short visit of the university we went to Palo Alto to get some food into our stomachs and went to Rangoon Ruby, with a Burmese cuisine. It was sooooo gooooood! :-).
Our final day in San Francisco AND of our holiday we spend visiting Alcatraz. We pre-booked our tour (recommended) and booked the first tour (8.45 AM). The meeting point is Pier 33 from where you take the ferry to the island. Alcatraz is much more than only a prison. People lived here once, the wardens and their families – together with some of the most notorious prisoners, like for example Al Capone. You get to walk freely around the island and see the cellblocks, a view over San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, a peek of how life could’ve been here on the island and a closer view of the occupation of the native Americans in the late ’60-s.
After our visit we walked around Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39. I kind of liked this neighborhood, although it was way too touristic for its own good :-). The sea lions were kind of cute to look at and the weather was better here than inlands, although the fog was coming closer and closer. Which wasn’t good for us, because we were headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, to get a nice view and a good picture without fog. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate. You can’t have it all.
The fog was a pain in the butt as well the next day, when we wanted to fly back home. After an hour delay because of the fog, we had another hour delay because one of the passengers managed to take out one of the windows… After that was fixed, we had to wait half an hour more until it was our turn to take off.
Not the smoothest flight back home :-).
Around the world in a lifetime 