Tag Archives: Golden Gate Bridge

Streets of San Francisco

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Quick Sightseeing Trip

It’s been several years since we last visited, but our granddaughter was on a spring break from college and wanted to visit San Francisco. We made a short list of must do’s and headed to town for a couple of days.

The first place we stopped at was “the crookedest street in the USA” – Lombard Street. This famous site is a very narrow one-way one block long roadway that winds back and forth traversing a steep hill. Houses, driveways and decorative plants are on both sides of the road.
From Lombard Street we drive down another hilly part of town towards the north end of San Francisco peninsula. Notice the tracks imbedded in the roadway.
At the shoreline we reached Fisherman’s Wharf – a large tourist spot with many restaurants and gift shops. The restaurants are noted for the fresh seafood which is delivered by fishing boats docked there.
As it was lunchtime, we found a place at the wharf to enjoy one of the traditional San Francisco dishes. This is a sour bread bowl filled with clam chowder.
Here we are enjoying the bread bowl
My choice was fried calamari
This huge ferris wheel sits at Fisherman’s Wharf for those who want to have a bird’s eye view of the harbor.
This is the (in)famous Alcatraz prison sits in the harbor a few miles from Fisherman’s Wharf.
Site seeing boats are popular in this area.
From Fisherman’s Wharf, we walked a few blocks to Ghiarardelli Square. This marks the original chocolate factory of Ghiaardelli brand candy.
Since then it’s been converted into a mini shopping mall with craft shops, food emporiums, souvenir outlets and restaurants.
There’s plenty of chocolates at one of their shops.
Even more candy for those with “sweet tooths”
From Fisherman’s Wharf, we walk another few blocks to the Hyde Street station. This is the location of the start of one of San Francisco’s famous cable car lines. The very steep hills of the city was the impetus for developing this means of transportation where underground cables “pulled” the trollys up the inclines. The city has two cable car lines. We rode one of them.

To right right is the gripman who “connects” the trolly to the cable and very importantly applies the brakes when going downhill.
This is the gripman who is taking us to San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Stepping off the cable car it’s a short walk to Chinatown. San Francisco’s Chinatown is one of the largest in the USA.
Chinatown has dozens of groceries selling fresh produce and supplied.
Of course we had to have a quick meal of wonton soup from one of the local restaurants.
A visit to San Francisco isn’t complete unless you include the famous Golden Gate Bridge.

While two days isn’t a lot of time to spend in San Francisco, our granddaughter throughly enjoyed seeing a few of the city’s sites.