We arrived in San Francisco on Friday afternoon via the Golden Gate bridge. Talk about impressive! It is roughly 3km long and absolutely massive (see our photos).
We have spent the last two days in extreme-sightseeing mode. I don't know how many kilometres we have walked, but we have managed to see all the sights on our list.
Yesterday we walked down to the bay and wandered through the tourist district. We checked out Alcatraz (from San Francisco - unfortunately tickets for tour book out ridiculously quickly) and Chinatown. We stopped at the pier for lunch. There is a great street that has stalls selling seafood along the footpaths. Their specialty is clam chowder served in a hollowed out sourdough cob. Simon had that, and I was super adventurous and had fish and chips! I did try his chowder though, and it was pretty good.
Today was a big day of sightseeing. I reckon we have clocked up about 15kms, which is pretty impressive if you've ever seen San Francisco's hills. Some streets actually have steps instead of footpaths because they are so steep. It's crazy to see people parking their cars on these hills. We actually saw a car that had rolled back and crashed into the car parked behind it! Luckily Sandy is tucked safely away in a nice flat parking lot. She's been pretty reliable, but I'd rather not test her brakes on these hills!
We saw the Six Sisters at Alamo Park. They are the famous houses you see in photos of San Francisco. We went to the Palace of Fine Arts. It is a very cool park with a Greek style palace. Movie fans - it is the park where Nicholas Cage catches Sean Connery after his escape and a crazy car chase in the movie 'The Rock'. We also wandered down and had another look at the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz from the beach.
We have both loved San Francisco, it's a very interesting city with lots of character. We are leaving tomorrow (with much tighter calf muscles) for Las Vegas. We plan to take two days to drive there, so that we can visit Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Death Valley National Parks on the way through. Then Las Vegas to win a million dollars playing poker to fund the rest of our planned adventures!
