San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz

Made the most of a full day in San Francisco. The hotel only provides breakfasts on weekdays, not at weekends, why? No matter we walked along Sutter St to Market and down to the Ferry Buildings where we had pancakes, bacon and sausage with coffee and orange juice.

A Saturday farmers market was on around Ferry Buildings so we were able to snack on freebies such as pears, peaches, plums, cheese etc to compliment our high carb breakfast.

From Ferry Buildings we walked along Embarcadero towards Fisherman's Wharf with a detour to Coil Tower from where this shot of San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz was taken. There were 588 steps from Embarcadero to the base of the tower and we were expecting to do more to climb the tower too. But we had to take the elevator to the top but it was worth the wait.

Embarcadero was the location of an elevated freeway that collapsed during the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco. When the rubble was removed they decided not to rebuild the elevated section which resulted in a more pleasant environment and connected the port area back to the main city again.

Fisherman's Wharf is a busy, happening sort of place, rather like the Royal Mile in Edinburgh during the Fringe, with all sorts of acts performing, all after your dollars.

We were then going on to take a cable car ride before walking the three main hills of San Francisco and take in Chinatown, but the queue for the cable cars was over an hour so in the end we just did the cable car which deposited us on Market back near our hotel.

The cable cars were worth the wait though. I was able to hang off the side as we switch backed over the streets for quite a distance. It was a spectacular ride giving some awesome views both of the steep road ahead or the views along the sidestreets. It all came to an end too soon, but it meant we were able to get back to the hotel in time for the complimentary glass of wine before resting up prior to going out for dinner. Perhaps we'll try a Chinese. I'll report back later.