The Tuesday of the trip we decided to explore Golden Gate Park. At first, Golden Gate Park is a little scary. Real hippies hanging outside the McDonalds near the entrance to the park looked kind of threatening. The park isn't like Central Park in NYC--Golden Gate Park is so big you really have to drive it. Derek and I actually drove from one attraction in the park to another.
Once we got to some of the places within the park that we wanted to see, we had a better time. We went to see the Conservatory of
Flowers (free admission on the first Tuesday of every month), which, in addition to a gorgeous exterior, had a display of "Wicked Plants"--poisonous plants, carnivorous plants, tobacco--it was pretty cool.
In the afternoon, we drove by Alamo Square and took a picture in front of the Painted Ladies, a famous row of Victorian Houses. They show them in the opening credits to Full House (but none of them is actually the house that the Tanners lived in on the show--we went and found that at 1709 Broderick St. They have changed the color of the door, though).
We spent some time on Fisherman's Wharf, ate some chocolate at Ghirardelli Square and had a seafood dinner at Cioppino's. Unfortunately, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory is no longer in the square, so we didn't get to see that. Derek had the signature dish at Cioppino's, the cioppino, a stew made from all sorts of seafood, and really enjoyed it.
Of course, we saw some seals on Pier 39 (and also spent a lot of money at the shopping plaza there!). More seals are supposed to arrive later in the season; it's based on their mating season, and they come back in the middle of August.
Wednesday morning we went on a bike tour (Bay City Bike, $55
each--one of our more expensive activities, but also very worth it one of our favorites) across the Golden Gate Bridge, which is a great way to see the city, although even "mild" hills were too tough for me. I am sure I embarrassed Derek in front of the other tourists on the bike tour, who were largely European, when I had to walk my bike up a few of the hills! I swear I wasn't the only one doing it though.
The tour took us into Sausalito, a cute little bay front city with lots of shopping. The tour came with a free ferry ride back across the bay, after which we hiked up and down Lombard Street (not my idea, but the hydrangeas were pretty).
At this point, I ran out of space on our camera's flash memory card. This is not good to do in Fisherman's Wharf, where tourism commodities are very expensive. So keep this in mind when you go on a trip!
That night, we had dinner in Chinatown at Y Ben. Dinner was good, but again, we were the only people in the restaurant! So weird!
No comments:
Post a Comment