Sunday, May 13, 2012

San Francisco Trip - Short Preview

We returned from our trip to San Francisco after midnight Sat/Sun and to say we are jet lagged today (Sunday) would be a huge understatement. 

The trip was great, there is so much to see and do in San Francisco that you really need a full week to see it all!  We arrived on Friday 5/4 at around 9pm, but with the 3 hour difference, that felt like midnight to us.  We had pre-booked the 'Lorrie shuttle' to/from the airport/hotel and that took an extra 30 minutes or so I would say.  We had to hit up the 3-4 shuttle stops at the airport and drop those 3-4 people off first.  Since it was a long travel day, we just wanted to get to the hotel, so it might be worthwhile to get a cab instead.  On the way back to the airport it was about 5mins late, but we went directly to the airport and it was super quick and he was a much better driver than the first guy, so it wasn't all that bad.  By doing the shuttle I'd say we probably saved $50 round-trip. 

We decided against renting a car, mostly because parking is insane downtown.  You can easily spent $35 or more a night just to park at your hotel in addition to the cost of the rental.  Plus it really is insane trying to drive downtown.  They have the trolley cars, buses with the cable lines overhead, regular buses, retro cable cars and regular drivers, all trying to navigate the same road way at the same time.  We would have had no idea what to do and would probably have freaked out.  We're glad we didn't have a car to deal with.

We were able to see everything we wanted to by doing scheduled tours.  Here is a quick day-by-day breakdown of everything we did below.  I will follow-up with some individual posts with further details and pictures.

1)  Saturday -  Double Decker Tour Bus to Fisherman's Wharf / Pier 39, Golden Gate Bridge Vista Point; Dinner at the Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel; Johnny Foley's Piano Bar.

2)  Sunday - Shopping in Union Square, which is where our hotel was; Double Decker tour day 2 to Golden Gate Park (Japanese Tea Garden), Painted Lady homes and Haight/Ashbury hippie area; Dinner at Forbes Island underwater restaurant;  F retro trolley back to hotel;

3)  Monday - Edge of the World wine country tour to Napa Valley / Sonoma;  Visited 5 wineries in total; Had lunch at the Girl and a Fig, where Lady Gaga recently had lunch, in Sonama;   Stopped at Marin Headlands for pictures of the Golden Gate; Dinner at Lori's Diner.

4)  Tuesday - Super Sightseeing Tours to Muir Woods Redwood Forrest, Sausalito for lunch and Alcatraz; Dinner at In-N-Out Burger; F retro trolley back to hotel and crazy homeless guy/lady verbally fighting incident;

5)  Wednesday - Chinatown for lunch/shopping;  Trolley to Lombard (crooked) Street;  Bus to Coit Tower; Bus to North Beach/Little Italy;  Hung out in Washington Square; Dinner at Calzone's;

6)  Thursday - Tour to Monterey Bay/Cannery Row, 17 mile road through Pebble Beach and Carmel;  Dinner at a mexican place;

7)  Friday - Bus to Lands End/Ocean Beach;  Back to Fisherman's Wharf to Boudin's Sourdough place for lunch; Cheesecake Factory for Dinner;


Chinatown

Golden Gate Bridge with fog rolling in

Lombard Street



1 comments :

Jen said...

Sounds like an action packed week of sight seeing. Def. on the list of places to go. Glad you had a good time. We're sending good vibes for Stinky.

 
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