I left my heart in San Francisco by Tony Bennett is so evocative (see lyrics), didn't you just know I would be saving this one up for the last day of our holiday. It means a lot to me, as when I wondered where I would want to be at the start of the new millennium I decided to celebrate it here, and have a vivid memory of hearing Bennett sing the song just after Midnight on the 1st of January 2000. The thrill still goes through me as I hear the song:
I left my heart in San Francisco, High on a hill, it calls to me. To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars. The morning fog may chill the air, I don't care.
Every time I'm lucky enough to come back to the city I fall in love with it all over again.
The Hotel Triton is part of this, it is a art-deco chic boutique hotel in the heart of the city, with Chinatown gate outside and just two blocks to Union Square. I first stopped here in 1996 on my way home from Australia, since then I have stayed here in 1997, 2000 (in January and September), 2002, 2009 and now. It is always a brilliant experience and the Triton Ducks are always part of the scene, even to Drew being given one as a gift from my sister back in 2009.
As ever we started the day (or two days as it will be by the time we get home) with a coffee in the room at 5.30 am. We shaved, showered and packed ready to leave the room at 8.30 am, when we checked out and lodged out bags with the hotel.
It was then up Grant Avenue to California and another ride down the California line Cable Car to Van Ness, the terminus. We walked down Van Ness a little and came across a small local deli, called Sammy's. We decided to stop here for breakfast. When paying I was particularly impressed when my receipt was e-mailed to me, I had to put the e-mail address into the iPad at the till, talk about cool technology.
We started with an Orange Juice each and then I had ham, 2 eggs and cheese on wheat toast and Drew opted for bacon, 2 eggs and cheese. We both had Americanos with these.
We then walked down to Geary and caught the 38 down to 6th Avenue, from there we changed on to the 44 for the trip into Golden Gate Park one of the smartest green areas in the city.
From the park we caught the 71 down to Market and Van Ness, then changed to the 49 to go up the 20 blocks from here to California. Then back on the Cable Car up California until Grant Avenue, where we got off (that's $20 today, making it $72 worth of travel for $22 payment - a great deal. Thanks San Francisco Muni).
Drew then went to sit in St. Mary's Square while I went to Mass in St. Mary's Church, right opposite. Mass was at 12.05 pm. Having a ten hour flight and losing 8 hours in timezones means that I am missing 18 hours of Saturday/Sunday. So how to get to Mass for this Sunday? Well I researched this in advance of the holiday and found this advice about when the period for the vigil mass of Sunday begins, i.e. after Noon on Saturday. So to avoid any problem with missing my attendance, late on Sunday night UK time. I attended Mass at 12.05 today to fulfil my obligation.
Following Mass we went for lunch. Just half a block from our hotel we found a lovely French style bistro we had not seen before called Le Central. It was a lovely place.
I started with Duck Rillette, which had a lovely texture and melted in the mouth. Drew opted for Onion Soup and that was served in the French style with lots of cheese over the top.
For mains I opted for the 'Le Central' Cassoulet, the cassoulet was made with lovely white beans with duck confit, Toulouse sausage and lamb, filling and very, very tasty. Drew opted for Pork Chop which had a raspberry sauce and was served with red cabbage and potato gratin.
Drew then had a blueberry crumble and ice-cream. At the end of the meal he wondered if this had been the best food of the holiday, certainly from his perspective the best or a close second to the Pirogue Grille in Bismarck. For me it was yesterday's cioppino that won the prize of best food of the holiday.
After lunch we walked around Market Street visiting the Apple Store and walked past Lotta's Fountain, that I don't remember seeing before.
At about 3.00 pm we went back to the Triton and sat and rested for awhile having made arrangements to depart for the Airport at 4.00 pm. We arrived at 4.45 and went straight through Check-in and security. By 5.15 we were in a coffee shop using the free wi-fi to submit photos to Flickr and write this post.
All being well we board in 30 minutes and leave here at 7:45 pm. Arriving back in the UK by 2.00 pm UK time tomorrow.
Friday in San Francisco was yet another lovely day. In keeping with my theme of a song per post, this post uses San Francisco by Gregory Alan Isakov:
The mist fills, quiet room. San Francisco
Because the City reminded us today why it is called Fog City as, while the temperature was in the high 60s, the fog was hanging around. This always seems to be the case when we plan to take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.
We began the day with coffee in the room while watching local news on TV. We left the hotel at 8.30 and walked up the two blocks to California Street where we caught the Cable Car all the way to its terminus at Van Ness.
We visited a Whole Foods Market store, three weeks ago we spent an hour in one of these stores in Georgetown, seeing the quality of the food here is always worth doing. This time we only went in for breakfast, we both had a roll and coffee.
We then caught the no 1 from Van Ness/Stockton to California/Park Presidio Boulevard where we changed on to the 28 to travel to the Golden Gate Bridge and walked up on to the Bridge. Four years ago we drove across the bridge in even more fog. Today it was lurking at the top of the bridge. While we were there we saw some America's Cup boats in the bay.
From the Bridge we caught the outbound 28 to Fort Mason one of the key historic military locations in San Francisco, that paid a key role in World War II. This is part of the City I'd never visited before.
From Fort Mason we caught the 30 to Columbus and Bay, and walked down onto Fisherman's Wharf.
Given that it is Friday we'd agreed to have a fishy meal as our main meal at lunch right here on the bay. So we went to Alioto's, our favourite seafood restaurant in San Francisco. We were sat at a table with views over the bay.
For starters I had crab cocktail. It had a lovely spicy tomato sauce over a mix of brown and white crab meat. Drew opted for a crab bisque and really enjoyed it.
For mains I went for one of the house specialities: Nonna Rose's Famous Cioppino, cioppino was invented here in San Francisco and includes crab, clams, shrimp, and mussels is a fish and tomato soup stock. Given the shellfish is all in its shell you get special utensils (see right) to eat the cioppino.
You also get a bib, see the before and after in the pictures.
Drew had a shrimp and crab cappellini, this pasta is called angel hair in the UK. It was a stunning dish of food which Drew enjoyed and completed, but he still had to wait for me to finish the cioppino.
Drew finished with a selection of desserts, a taster plate, including a creme brulee, strawberries, sweet cannelloni filled with cherries and cream and a homemade vanilla ice-cream. He loved it.
We finished with espressos then walked up to Taylor and Bay to catch the Powell-Mason Cable Car. Due to the crowds Drew had to hang on the outside, he is more nervous of this than I am, I love it, for me it is something which is at the heart of being in San Francisco.
We got off at Bush Street and walked down the three blocks to the hotel.
Later in the afternoon we went down to SoMa, Drew wanted to visit the Moscone Centre where lots of geeky events take place.
From there we caught the 27 back up through downtown and got off at Leavenworth/California and caught the California Cable Car back to Grant. Given we had a big lunch we stopped for a Subway on the way back to the hotel, Drew had a Turkey Sub and I had a Veggie Deluxe.
On an accounting note
Back in 2000 when I started giving my sister updates on my holidays, by e-mail, before blogs become common. I would always want to evidence the deal of buying multi-day travel passes. I'm still doing it, so here is that update for the last two days :-)
A single ride on a bus/streetcar in San Francisco is $2, Cable Car rides are $6. A daily ticket is $14 and a 3 day ticket (which we bought) is $22.
So, as outlined in yesterday's post, we had 9 bus rides and one Cable Car ride which would have been $24. So we have saved on our 3 day pass with 2 days to go, not a bad deal.
Today, as you can see above, we had 5 bus rides and three Cable Car rides which would be $28. So $52 rides for $22 dollars and still tomorrow to go. A great saving!
If you're going to San Francisco (see lyrics) sets the scene for today's post. You'll know how it goes:
If you're going to San Francisco, Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
If you're going to San Francisco, You're gonna meet some gentle people there.
Well I don't think flowers would suit me, but there was a lovely relaxed atmosphere about our day in San Francisco on Thursday.
But first an update on Wednesday night. Having checked into the Hotel Triton and sorted out our cases and the bits and pieces we had collected in the car over the last few weeks, we were ready to go out.
We had decided to go back to a restaurant we had visited the last twice we were in San Francisco, The Stinking Rose. Stinking Rose is an old name for garlic and this is a garlic restaurant and plays that up in all of its food and the merchandise it shares.
A few days ago I warned our vegetarian readers to look away today it is any vampires that need to look away now, this much garlic would not be good for you. We started with the signature dish of the restaurant Bagna Calda, which is described as Garlic Soaking in a Hot Tub. This is a garlic rich dish which you eat with lots of bread. We had two plates full of bread, and love the flavour of the garlic, olive oil and anchovies.
For mains I had Rabbit roasted with olives and an extra virgin olive oil garlic tomato sauce and garlic mash. The garlic flavour was lovely as were the cloves you can see in the picture, the rabbit was juicy and had a delicious flavour which was complemented by the garlic. Drew opted for the Pork Chop with a sweet garlic relish and caramelized apples also served with garlic mash. He really loved this, the pork was cooked perfectly.
You'd think you couldn't do garlic desserts, but you would be wrong. Drew opted for the Garlic Ice Cream with caramel sauce it was rich and tasty, and there were lots of it.
We walked back the 9 blocks down Grant Avenue via Chinatown to the hotel.
On Thursday we began the day by going to the Muni sales point at Powell and Market to purchase 3 day passes ($22 each). Muni manages bus, cable cars and streetcars in San Francisco, so one ticket allows you to use all the public transport, which makes life easy.
Our first trip was in the F line street car from Powell and Market down to Castro. We had breakfast here in a restaurant called Orphan Andy's. Drew opted for bacon and eggs (over easy) when I went for the Big 2, which is two eggs(over hard), two sausage links, two rashers of bacon, two eggs and two hot cakes; I always say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and this was a very good breakfast, even I was full at the end of it.
After a stroll through Castro we caught the F line back to 18th and Market to visit the UN Plaza, a part of town I had not visited before. From there we walked up to City Hall. All the photos from San Francisco can be seen here.
Outside City Hall we caught the 19 to Beach Street, where we took some photos of the bay and Golden Gate bridge. We then went to Ghirardelli Square. After going through the chocolate shop we stopped at Lori's for lunch.
At Lori's I had a sandwich called 'The Heart Breaker' which was barbecue chicken breast smothered with sautéed mushrooms & onions with tomato on a wheat bun; tasty. Drew had a BLT.
From here we caught the 19 back up to California and then got our first cable car ride of the trip from California at Polk to California and Grant, so we could walk the two blocks back to the hotel.
After an hour or so in the hotel it was time to go back out. This time we caught the 5 to Fulton and Steiner and walked up through Alamo Square to see the famous Painted Ladies. Lovely houses from the Victorian era. In the past I have always been here in the morning, when the sun shines from behind the houses, whereas at 4.00 in the afternoon the sun is shining on the houses, great for photos, as evidenced by the 100 or so people who were doing just that.
We walked down Steiner Street the three blocks to Haight and caught the 71 up to Haight-Ashbury, the home of the flower power referred to in our title song. It remains a magnet for hippies and the, now elderly, members of the bear generation. Within minutes Drew was offered mushrooms and weed, so some things don't change. Naturally he declined It is worth coming to this part of town, just to see people still dressed in 60s style and note that the hippy culture hasn't died out at least here.
We walked down to Golden Gate park and then caught the 71 back to Divisadero and the 24 to Castro and 19th Street. While here this morning we had seen a nice Thai restaurant called the Thai House. We started by sharing Larb Gai and Som Dam, then shared Moo Grapow and Ner Pat King. Strange, given that Thai food is the biggest influence on what I cook at home, that this is the first we have had this holiday. It was lovely and fresh, a lovely meal that we enjoyed so much we forgot to photo it. Or as Drew puts it:
<<Co-pilot's note: The reason for the lack of food photos at the Thai House Express is that I was enjoying my dinner so much that I forgot!! I was appropriately chastised/nagged/ranted at/harangued for this failure>>
We walked up to Market and Castro and then caught the F line streetcar back to Market and Geary and walked the two blocks to the hotel.
What could today's post be called but California here we come, taking some liberty by pluralising the title of the great Al Jolson hit. (See Lyrics).
My body always takes awhile to make the change from one timezone to another. So when I awoke at 4.15 am, which would have been a more reasonable 5.15 in yesterday's time zone, I tried to go back to sleep, but failed. I got up at 4.45 and made coffee. I updated the blog and loaded yesterday's photos. I then caught some of the local (Reno) news. Essentially the day will start foggy and then the fog will be blown away by thunderstorms! Perhaps I'd have done better not knowing!
We went down to Breakfast at 7.00 am, the Best Western Plus breakfast was lovely; eggs and sausage for both of us, with Drew finishing off with a chocolate chip muffin and me having a cinnamon bagel.
We left Winnemucca at 8 am, today the route is again a simple one, until right at the end when there are some twists and turns in the centre of San Francisco. It looks like this:
Click here for full details
Well the weather forecaster was half right, when we left the fog was all around, thankfully it was not enough to make driving dangerous, you could see for at least 1/2 mile at all times, but it does mean there was no chance to take photos at the start of the last leg of the Nevada journey, as the only thing in the photo would be the fog. As you can see it brightened up by 9.15 as we continued our way through the Nevada desert. Thankfully there was no sign of the thunderstorm.
At 9.50 we stopped for some petrol and a coffee (Starbucks) in a town called Fernley. As I had at the last Starbucks I asked for two Venti Americanos to stay. This didn't raise an eyebrow in Minnesota, but here in Nevada she had to check that I meant, as she put it, 'out of china cups'. Well the huge mugs wouldn't meet my description of china cups, but I understood what she meant. She smiled and had to move some delivery boxes to get to the cups, I'd have had it in polystyrene if it would have been easier, but by now it was too late. She was really proud to have found the cups, so the coffee was made, and it was strong flavoured and delicious.
We left there at 10.40 and at 10.47 Drew drive us over the 5,000 mile point of our journey this holiday. I hear people who don't know me asking how we knew, we have a spreadsheet of course!! People who do know me would not even have thought of asking :-)
<<co-pilot's note - I am toying with the idea of writing an entire app to do holiday calculations incorporating graphs and wot nots, including XML output - for the nerdy ones amongst you.>>
From Fernley we continued past Reno to the California State line, our 21st and last state of the holiday.
We then came into lovely hill country with trees everywhere, after so much flat desert it is nice to be back in a National Forest. As ever when entering California we had to stop for the Agricultural Inspection Area, Drew was also driving the last time we travelled into California, like then the 'inspection' is just a matter of stopping and going again, so it did not delay the journey.
At 12.32 Drew passed the milestone of having driven 3,000 miles this holiday.
The route through Tahoe National Forest is also a route up and then down Mount Donner so we passed Donner Summit. Some of the views here were exceptional, but with Drew not liking drops, we didn't get close enough to the edge to take any photos :-)
Once Drew had managed his 3,000 miles we stopped for lunch and a change of driver. We pulled off the interstate and found a nice diner called the Dine and Dash outside the town of Colfax. This was a nice, friendly place with great food.
I opted for a sandwich called The Nava, it included Roast beef, bacon, jalapenos, bbq sauce, tomatoes red onions and cream cheese and served with sweet potato fries. It was a huge sandwich, would it fit into my mouth, well yes of course. Drew opted for a chorizo and scrambled egg which had cheese, salsa, sour cream and avocado on top and which was served with home fries and wheat toast. It was very tasty and filling.
Once we rejoined the I-80 at Colfax it got busy as we passed Auburn and Sacramento. We particularly liked the sign near Sacramento which said 'take the five left lanes for San Francisco' the other three lanes went to Sacramento. I can't think of any equivalent driving experience in the UK.
We continued on the I-80 until coming to the Bay Bridge, it will be our last time on this double decker bridge as a new bridge is being put in place between the 28th of August and the 3rd of September. We left the bridge and went down the Fremont Street exit and after three turns were in Grant Avenue and arrived outside the Hotel Triton at 3.40. Drew got out and took the luggage into the hotel while I drove off to take the car back to the Hertz office in O'Farrell Street, this involves driving through the Chinatown Gate and some great up and down hill driving along Pine Street, then down Powell with Cable Cars all around. I arrived at Hertz at 3.55 and then walked back to the hotel by 4.20 pm. Drew had checked in, so I went up to the room, room 516.
