Aware this was our last day so we needed to pack lots in. First a walk down to the Marina area and a stop at Ghirardelli Square and the chocolate factory there! Coffee and chocolate sitting in the lovely square was very nice.
Down then to the shore line and we tracked west along with the joggers, the cyclists and.....the swimmers! Lots of people swimming the harbour - possibly practising for the Alcatraz swim. Absolutely mad - the water did NOT look appealing.
Our goal was The Palace of Fine Arts, this huge classicly styled building built in 1915 for The Pan Pacific Exposition. A ridiculous thing but impressive nevertheless.
We then grabbed the Big Bus back into town, with time for a coffee before our first walking tour of the day - Barbury Coast. The Finacial district is built on reclaimed land where at least 600 ships were abandoned in the Gold Rush (crews and passengers abandoned the ships when they arrived, and headed off to look for gold)?. Each new building work has to have an architect to check for what was below. In this case just outside Stabucks, the outline of the ship is marked in granite on the pavement, a plaque on the wall, and a stylised ship on the wall.
We then walked on being shown hidden older parts of the area hidden within modern buildings. The most impressive was being shown a Shanghi tunnel hidden in the basement of a handicraft shop. Being drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery on board ships bound for Shanghi was common place. There was a huge network of tunnels running below the streets, in order to move these people quickly away. It was only made illegal in......the 1970s!
We had lunch back down at the Ferry Terminal, where a huge Saturday Farmers Market was going on. Great street music as well. We had lunch at the Prather Ranch Meat company. Everywhere was incredibly busy - much busier than during the week. It is a holiday weekend - Memorial Day on Monday and everyone seems to have come to San Francisco!
Our destination after lunch was the Coit Tower to see the great views afforded from the top. We climbed the 400 odd steps up from the street to the base of the tower only to find the queue for entry to be more than an hour. Damn!
We didn't wait but headed for Lombard Street instead - the crookedest street in SF. It's on a 27 degree hill and with the turns they have built in it makes it a 16degree hill. It's become a self perpetuating tourist attraction. People want to drive down it and people want to watch people driving down it, so dozens of people were there. The poor house owners!
Time for a quick beer before the last walking tour of the day - North Beach/Little Italy. A very interesting tour including a saloon which survived the 1906 earthquake. An amazing place, like something out of a Western, but this was no toursit trap, this was the Real Macoy. Amazing bar man, and music. iPhones and cameras felt completely out if place but we managed to film a little flavour.
Then a brilliant meal sitting outside on the street (under heaters thank goodness) with Italian potstickers followed by great pizza.
