Most of the time when we left the hotel in the morning we turned right and headed up to Market Street but today it was time for a change so we turned left out of the hotel to have a walk around Yerba Buena Gardens which is a big park with a waterfall in. This area was redeveloped back in the eighties but the then mayor of the city George Moscone was already against the idea and wanted it developed as a park. In November 1978 George Moscone and Harvey Milk while in their offices at City Hall were murdered by Dan White for supporting a civil rights bill on equality at work for gay people. A few years later work began on something that would honor the civil rights movement in San Francisco and Yerba Buena Gardens was created.
They achieved something remarkable for the time by building The Moscone Canter underground and a large park on top complete with a forty foot long waterfall that's twenty foot tall. It's wasn’t the sunniest of days but it was nice just to stroll around the park and get away from the traffic of the city for a bit. Sitting by the top pool that leads to the edge of the waterfall was just perfect and best of all there was no litter at all anywhere and all the homeless people who sleep on the grass at night had gone. Apparently underneath where we were sat in a large ice rink as well. From there we walked over to the far side of them to have a look at the restored carousel from the nineteen hundreds and used the lift from the park back down to street level again and walked back to 5th street to catch the number thirty bus down to the Cal train station.
We never normally head down this way but I wanted to have a look at the trains in the station as we were passing, it’s amazing how big they are when you get close up to them although you can't go the platform until the train is ready to load up, you can walk along the road at the side and see them through the fence to take some pictures. I really liked the colours they are painted in but the strangest thing is there is no real platform like you get in this country just a bit of raised pavement so you have to climb steps to get on them but as they are double-decker trains it’s not as high up as you would think plus if you needed help getting on they have what looks like a pallet truck that lifts wheelchair up and into the train. I was going to wait and watch one of them go out but it was going to be a while so it was time to get a three dollar coffee from the shop on the station and have a sit down for a bit before we headed into Safeway just across the road. We would normally have come down here to buy the shopping but the bus runs in a one-way loop around this part of town so you have to walk back two blocks when you get back of the bus but might still be worth it next time we come here because you get so much more choice and better prices.
After picking up some bits that we would need we headed across road to AT&T Park which is home to the San Francisco Giants baseball team, even though the season has finished awhile back is still worth having a walk around there. It's hard to think what it must be like on game day around here with around thirty thousand people about. The stadium itself doesn't look that big but you can see through the gates around the bottom and the place is huge inside, it must look even bigger when you are in there. The area around here looks like it has recently been refurbished with all new paving and benches and I must say they have done a good job of it.
This is where the Embarcadero starts and runs for about five miles down to Fisherman’s Wharf. There is a short pier that runs out into The Bay so we had a walk along there and seen a couple of pelicans sat on the breakwater. Today wasn't really warm which was just as well because we had a fair amount of walking to do but by it was very peaceful strolling along the Bay and under the Bay Bridge towards Rincon Park were Cupids is located. Cupids Span is a giant work of art in the shape of a bow and arrow that must be about fifty foot tall and was donated to the city by some famous artist. From there we just sat around for a while and soaked the atmosphere for a bit and watch the Muni trams going down the hole in the ground that takes them under the city before heading into the Ferry Building Marketplace to grab a pie to eat. By now we had spent a lot of time walking so it was time to think about calling it a day so crossed the road to and waited for the bus back along Market Street with a short diversion into Walgreen’s to stock up on drink, It was good to get back to the hotel and have a lie down for a bit watching TV.
