West Coast Diary: All about the Water (Day 3)

There are numerous references to water in this city, which isn't surprising - it is surrounded on three sides by it. Today was the day to spend some time in two aquatic areas: The Marina District and Pacific Heights.

The most fun way to get down to the Marina District is with the cable cars. Over to our trusty Wargreens store opposite the hotel to pick up a couple of one-day MUNI (local transport) passes for $15 each, we took the cable car from the Powell Street Turnaround to Lombard Street. Here we walked down the Z street which really does zigzag, although no car chases occurred whilst we were there, maybe because of the slight rain?

Continuing down the road from here, passing some nice houses, we arrived at the SF Art Institute where there is a mural from Diego Rivera. Classes are actually given in this building as well, so we popped our heads around a few of the doorways to see some of their works too.

Now that the rain had stopped, we made our way back up the Z street (not as easy going up as down). There is a small park and tennis courts on the other side of the road, which apparently give a great view over the city. Unfortunately it was foggy at this time, so we did not see anything apart from all the local dog walkers.

The next cable car took us from here down to Fisherman's Wharf, where we first visited the Ghirardelli Square. Here there are a collection of boutiques, and chocolate / ice-cream shops.

Walking down the road we saw a little art gallery that looked interesting (Franklin Bowles Gallery). Upon entering, we realised that they had Dali and Picasso works, including one of Alice in Wonderland (Dali). Of course the price wasn't as interesting, and despite their insistence, we declined to buy it for the price of $1200.

Following our trusty Lonely Planet guide, we walked down Chestnut to the Marina District. This route took us past lots of eateries whose smells started to make us hungry. We stopped at the Blue Barn and ate an amazing salad and sandwich (the menu was quite big, so took a while to decide - sorry anyone waiting behind us in the queue...).

Further down the road we came across the Roasting Cafe, where it was time for a hot chocolate / chai latte and brownies (it was still cold outside). After picking up some stamps at the Post Office (not the most intuitive of buildings), we caught the #30 bus to Fisherman's Wharf (the blocks down here were pretty big for our tired little legs).
 

We were warned that you could have a long wait for the cable cars here, but we didn't realise it would be 40 minutes. Finally we got on one, but alas, California Street was too busy to take any photos. Instead we went into the Cable Car Museum, which was very interesting, history of the transport in SF, with the actual cables passing through and lots of old photos of the first cars. It is also free to visit.

Now we really were ready to relax, so we went back to the hotel, got changed and headed out on the #3 bus from just off Union Square. We arrived at California/Filamore in a quarter of an hour, and walked up the road until we found the Peruvian restaurant (Fresca) where we were meeting Amir and Kirsty for dinner. The food here was very tasty, and the wine went down well too, which was great to catch up on old times.

We walked off the meal around the roads of Pacific Heights chatting away until we reached the Red Lion where we stopped to have a drink or two. Apparently it's one of Amir's favourite spots.

We managed to get the last bus back to the hotel, arriving around midnight.