Coit Tower

Monday wasn’t one of the sunniest days of the holiday but we had a few things planned for today but after the long day yesterday it was going to be a shorter one with a lot less walking. I think we left the hotel around 10 o'clock and headed out to Market Street to catch the F line streetcar down to pier 39, now we were feeling better we wanted to have a proper look round the gift shops to see if we could find some unusual and unique things to buy. I honestly thought there was going to be a fight on the streetcar between the driver and a bloke who got on. Because the tram we were on had been caught up another one and the driver was trying to close the doors while people were still getting on, as it was already packed it might have been a good idea to tell people that the one behind was probably empty but he seemed to be going out of his way to annoy everyone who got on, I'm surprised nobody has shot him before now. There was lots of swearing and racist remakes exchanged between them then he went past the stop that people wanted to get off at so there was lots more shouting, we were glad to get off that one I can tell you. Finally, we got to the pier where we got something to eat while we here, a hot dog I think, then went to see our old friends the sea lions. 

After spending about an hour on the pier we walked from there to a place called Fisherman’s Wharf which is a bit like the seafront at Blackpool, this is where all the shops and restaurants are most of which are seafood ones that don't appeal to us, we did come across a fantastically strange museum called Musée Mécanique that housed arcade games dating back around a hundred years or so, most of them were in working order as well. I can't think how long it’s been since I've seen a two-player PAC_MAN machine and the people who were working in there went around on roller skates. It was really fascinating to see all these restored machines in action. By now it was lunchtime so we stopped off in McDonald’s for something to eat which was a lot better than the ones at home and cheaper as well. When you order a drink they just give you the cup and you fill it up yourself as many times as you like, of they did that home it would be empty in five minutes. They also had super fast free Wi-Fi as well so we made use of that. Now we had been fed and watered we walked back the way we came but on the other side of the road this time back to the entrance of the Pier 39 to wait for the number 39 bus to take us up to Coit Tower.

We had previously tried to visit Coit Tower on our last trip here a year before but it had closed the day before for eight months for repairs but now all of that was completed and open to the public again. It's only around a twenty bus ride up to the top but you wouldn't want to have to walk it from the bottom as the tower sits on top of a hill that's about three hundred foot or more above sea level where we got on via a narrow twisting road that ends in a car park. At least this driver was very jolly but hardly anybody gets on this route. At the top in the car park, you get a fantastic view across San Francisco Bay even though it was a bit overcast today. We even got out first sighting of the wild parrots that live up here, you generally hear them before you see them because they go around in big flocks and scream all the time. A lot of the people who live around there are fed up with them as they do a lot of damage to their gardens. The tower itself isn't that high at only seventy-five feet tall and has painted murals around the bottom inside that were by famous people but none I’d heard of. It cost eight dollars each to go up (and we got the change in 2 two dollar bills that I’ve never seen before and are not very common) and they stamp your hand with a heart-shaped stamp that you show to the person who controls the lift to the top, this has to be the slowest lift I've ever been to but it is nearly a hundred years old. It seems to take about five minutes to get up there but it's probably a lot less then there are about twenty steps to climb until you get to the very top.

There no roof on this tower but there are windows that they open for you so you can take photographs without getting the reflection in. They have somebody up there all the time opening them for you this is to stop the glass getting scratched which was what had happened over the past few years. I must say the view from the top across the city is stunning you can literally see a full 360 degrees around so it was out with camera and start taking photographs, it was a good opportunity to try out a setting on the camera as well that makes everything look like toy town but you need to be high up like this place is to make it work best. I think we spent about an hour up there and even the sun made an appearance through the clouds for a brief time. By now my legs were starting to ache now so we went back to the bottom of the tower and had a sit down outside for a while and watched the parrots fly around. By the time we had walked back round to the bus stop, we had just missed the bus back down and they only run every 20 minutes so I took the opportunity to have a look at Filbert Street Steps which is one of the famous staircases of the city. The steps descend from here all way down to Levi Park three hundred feet below, not the sort of thing you would want to walk up and they do it in about half a mile so you can imagine how steep they are so I only walked part way down to have a look. It was time now to head back to the bus stop where I had parked Jane and catch the bus back down again and got off at Washington Square.

There's plenty of shops round here of all kinds as this part of town is known as Little Italy but most of it doesn’t seem to come to life until later in the evening, we had planned on going in Rouge Bar but it seemed really busy in there now so it was time to hit the off licence to get some beer for later, there's not too many of these places around in San Francisco and most shops near the hotel don't even sell beer so always best to stock up when you see somewhere like this. By now it was time to catch the bus across the road and head back towards the hotel; it was time to wait for the dreaded number 30 bus that takes us through Chinatown. This is where real time for when the bus is going to arrive works well, we could see that there was four number 30 buses on the way and only a few minutes between the first and the fourth one but because they are trolley buses they can't overtake each other so when the first one turned up they were almost hanging out of the windows but by the time the third one got here it was almost empty so it does pay to wait that little bit longer sometimes in the long run but I don't think most people dont even bother looking up at the screen above most of the time or have never noticed them. 

We got off in Union Square after about fifteen minutes on the bus and I really needed a beer so it was time to find Johnny Foley’s Irish bar. It's not one of my favourite pubs in San Francisco but it was close to where we were so it's any port in a storm sort of thing. They really always try to push the food menu on you in here when you walk in the door but there was nobody there at the time so we just went and sat down and I got us some drinks from the bar, the thing is about this place is it's a lot like Weatherspoon’s with a plastic Irish feel, the food is definitely overpriced and the beer isn't far behind that but all as we want was a drink and a sit down for a bit. That didn't stop the waitress scampering over after a couple minutes to give us a menu but you can’t really blame them as they are only on a couple of dollars an hour as a severing staff and make most of their income from tips. It wouldn't have been so bad but at $7 dollars for a pint (about £4.50) the beers not that cheap and that's a US pint which is smaller than a UK pint but it does tend to be a lot stronger so it probably balances itself out. I think we spent about forty minutes in there in total and that was enough so it was time to move on and go to Cako bakery just down the that do the most fantastic cupcakes, we have been here before and this place is not something you want to miss in the city. Cako is sort of like real or craft ale is to people, everything is fresh that day and handmade, contains about a million calories and is sheer indulgence. This is the sort of thing you could eat until you exploded but like most things that are nice they come at a price but I think $10 dollars for four was well worth the money. By now it was starting to go dark and it's hard to think where all the time went to but we had a full day and been to everything that we had planned so you can't complain about that. If we had not been feeling as tried we would have got the bus up to Japan town to look at some of the architecture that they illuminate at night but we really just wasn’t up to that now so that only thing left to do was to walk into Union Square and watch the Cable Cars go past for a while and soak up a bit of the early evening nightlife with people playing music on the corner who were good and got passers-by involved, not to get money off them but just to have a good time on a warm evening. San Francisco really has to be the most laid-back city ever and I think that is why everyone loves it so much. As we were sat there in the square on a warm evening you soon forget that is January and we would normally be freezing if we were at home, that's the one thing that will stay with me forever is being in the middle of a big city that feels safe, is fairly safe compared to many other places, warm, laid back and friendly. I'm not saying bad crime doesn't happen here, it does, but you are more likely to be killed in San Francisco by a bad driver who doesn't stop after hitting you. The road accident death rate is really shocking there, I think there were around nine fatal accidents in the two weeks we spent there on our first visit there and sixteen in the same amount of time on the second, half of which were kids in a hit and run. It's a very sobering thought sometimes when you see it on the local news day in day out and sometimes right near to where you are staying or even where you were only a couple of hours ago. So it's always best to keep your eyes open and your wits about you when crossing the road thus avoiding getting run over. 

Today had been a very enjoyable day even though it had been a long one for us both but you are only going to a chance to come here once in every few years so you make the most of whilst you and it’s not like we was staying out late into the night partying, we are far too old for that sort thing I think. So that was the end to another day in the sunshine state, by now we were over halfway through the holiday and the days seemed flying past but we had both got over the flu by now and the weather has been warm and mostly sunny which I think helped more than anything to get over the illness we had. Most of California has been in a draught for the last four years or so but they still had plenty of water, by the time we left to go home they hadn't had any rain for over ninety days. Most of the reservoirs are outside the city in the mountains of Yosemite National park and it is pumped over a hundred miles to a large covered reservoir on the outskirts of the city. 

And so ends another day in SF.