Day 20 – San Francisco Chronicles

This morning we took it easy and caught up on some sleep, even creeping down for breakfast was hard work, but eventually we pulled it together and got out on the street for a busy day of sightseeing.

The biggest difference on this trip between staying in small cities and large metros is driving. We’ve been so used to practically living in the car and enjoying freedom on the roads that when we get to traffic filled streets the stress is too much and we’ve gotta put our walking shoes on!

Unfortunately San Francisco sits on so many hills it’s a difficult town to do on foot if you’re not some kind of mega healthy, marathon runner. Joe actually wanted to hoof it uphill, but I found a good excuse to save my feet in the form of the famed cable car. You can’t go to San Francisco without riding the cable car! It’s a good job too as at one point it seemed to be moving almost vertically!

We hopped off at the top of Lombard Street - The world’s crookedest street. It doesn’t look much from above, so we made our way down to the bottom watching everyone that drove down it taking pictures and video – seems this isn’t a road locals use for getting around then!

Almost more impressive than the curvy road were the beautiful houses on it. If nothing else, San Francisco has been the best looking place we’ve seen so far. It’s so colorful and the architecture is really something else! Nothing proved this more than our next stop. We had to work for the privilege, as again it was an upward hike, but after a detour past City Hall we arrived at the Painted Ladies, a row of brightly painted Victorian houses facing Alamo Park. Some people will recognise these from the opening of ‘Full House’!!

 



Spot the difference!

More walking brought us to the Castro District. An area well-known for its large gay population and being home to Harvey Milk – The unofficial Mayor of Castro Street. Harvey was the first openly gay politician elected, becoming a city supervisor for California in 1977. Sadly he was murdered by a fellow city supervisor little under a year later in a tragic turn of events. What he was fighting for back then is still relevant today...I wonder what Harvey would have had to say about the issue of Prop 8!

I’d been craving sushi for the last couple of days, so while there we also found a tasty sushi restaurant and had a great (although oversized) lunch. It didn’t sit well with Joe though and he complained about this for some time…I’m guessing that’ll mean no more sushi for me on this trip!

So, until tomorrow…

Ani

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