The Plan (the
whole Plan)
Day #3 : Sun 11 May : SF
It must be said that there are few more pleasant places than San Francisco on a bright Sunday.
Morning
broke with coffee and bagels. Then we wandered up the hill to find
a means to get to Fisherman's Wharf. The cable car was absolutely
chocker, but they let you hang on to the side of the thing, Indian Railways
style (yeah!). So as the vintage transport clattered along with us
clinging on for dear life, making vertiginous ascents and descents and
taking right-angled corners as fast as the guys in charge saw fit.
San Francisco has the grid structure familiar to many American cities. But the grid has been superimposed incongruously onto a series of steep hills, resulting in a strange urban topography of sudden irregular and exhilarating climbs and crossroads fitting uncomfortably into the surroundings. But it makes for a great ride on the cable car, anyway.
As it was nice weather (if a bit chilly as the
wind blew off the sea) a long walk was organised. We got the ferry
over to Sausalito, an affluent-looking place on the other side of the Golden
Gate Bridge, and set about walking back to San Francisco, via the Palace
of Fine Arts. And ... well, probably better if we just show you the
pictures...
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San Francisco skyline as the boat takes us across the bay towards the north side of the bridge. |
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The marina at Sausalito.
For a brief romantic moment, Mark started to wonder about the possibility
of moving here. Then he looked in an estate agent's window and saw
the prices. So back to Mitcham for him.
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A long walk in the woods. Then sight of That Bridge. |
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And the long walk continues...
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The Palace of Fine Arts. It's surrounded by bizarrely vulgar colonnades ... |
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... topped by architectural features
whose names we can't remember, er, are left an an exercise for the reader,
decorated by statues of women with voluptuous bottoms.
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Here's a close-up of one of those bottoms, just for the record. |
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And into the Exploratorium, which
resembles the kids' room at the Science Museum multiplied by ten.
And here is the alarming sight of Mark multiplied an infinite number of
times, courtesy of a walk-in kaleidoscope.
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After this long walk we declared ourselves knackered.
So we found a bar, then an Italian restaurant, which served us a huge meal
with an even huger bottle of rough-as-fuck Chianti. Cable car back
to the hotel, where we slept very peacefully....
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