Day 2: The San Francisco Treat

Today we woke up fairly early (for us!) at 7:30.  After showers and the hotel continental breakfast (nothing remarkable there), we called an Uber.  We had him drop us off in the downtown area.  We remarked on the $4.75/gallon price for gas that we saw and the Uber driver said that housing is bad too.  A person needs a full-time job paying $50 an hour to rent a decent apartment.  (For those not from Minnesota, we pay about $2.80/gallon). 

Once downtown we walked around looking at buildings.  I like older Victorian or classic architecture, while Joshua likes new, shiny high rises.  We saw both.  The streets were pretty bare of people walking and some of the buildings and mall areas were closed.  Granted, it is Sunday, but I’m guessing that they don’t have a lot of people living downtown for it to be that barren.   Randy slipped in a puddle near the curb and fell down, so his knee hurt him the rest of the day.   

There were rainbow flags everywhere downtown, probably for Pride month.

Joshua

cool fountain

this is an elevated walkway going on for several blocks, probably modeled on the High Line in New York.  Access was closed until July 1.

Note the reflection of another new building in this building.

See the statues of people near the top?

 Next we walked into Chinatown.  We walked around looking at shops and signs.  We had thought of going on a tour of the Fortune Cookie Museum, but decided against that.

Next we walked up (and up and up) to the Coit Tower.   A person I encounted as she was going down and I was climbing up said that there were too many flipping stairs! 

The crazy lengths people go to to live on the hill!

Having to park at 90 degree angles to the curb

From the hike up, the Bay Bridge in the background

Almost to the top of the hill

From the front door of the tower

Coit Tower

Coit Tower is on what used to be Signal Hill then Telegraph Hill.  There were originally semaphores on the hill to let the people below know when a ship was coming in and what it was carrying.  Then, with the invention of the telegraph, that took over the job.  Eventually those weren’t needed and a prominent citizen, Lizzie Hitchcock Coit, bequeathed enough money to build the tower as a gift to beautify the city she loved.  Evidently, she was quite the character, even wearing pants so that she could gamble in the downtown bars.  The building was built in 1933 and frescoes were painted in the interior by local artists funded through the US government’s Public Works of Art project during the depression.  It was designated in 1983 as an historic landmark.  We noticed how nicely the paintings still looked and if they were original or redone.  I asked and was told that by the 1960s they were in horrible shape, so they erected a railing to decrease people touching them and redid parts of the frescoes.  Now a specialist comes in once per year to touch up what needs touching up.  I also asked about a set of eyes above one doorway and a fist above another and was told that they were masonic symbols and the docent showed us another surprise in one of the paintings that you can see below. 

the frescoes even make use of the recessed areas of the wall

look over the shoulder of the man working--frescoed graffiti on the post

from the top

from the top looking down

Walking down from the tower to the Embarcadero, the staircase ran through backyards and provided access to people's homes with creative and jungly gardens.

The Embarcadero runs along the coast.  We saw the piers and wharves, eventually getting to the infamous Fisherman’s Wharf.  It was filled with tourists and sidewalk artists and performers.  Joshua and I walked up to Ghiardelli Square and got two free pieces of chocolate.  Joshua was looking for a bag to collect some sand in.  Sheer willpower kept me from buying chocolate.  Then we rejoined Randy at the beach and Joshua collected some sand.  He has a big supply of snack-size ziploc bags that he wants to use to collect some sand from each country that we go to.  He has little containers at home that each sand will go into. 

Street performers

We have a picture of this van from our last trip here!

We were wondering where Ghirardelli was, then we turned around !

Randy and Joshua

Ghirardelli Square

What is visible of the Golden Gate Bridge

We walked out onto the pier that goes between the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz Island and took photos, thought you couldn’t see much of the bridge through  the fog.  By that time, we were exhausted and our feet and legs hurt so we sat by the water and watched the crabs crawling on the rocks below us.  There were other things we wanted to see, but they were all too far for us to walk to in our weakened condition!   We finally decided to try to walk to the closest –only about a mile away (all uphill).  We went up Hyde from the beach—bad mistake.  Hyde is very steep—four blocks was torture.  We made our way to Lombard because Randy wanted to see the twisty hillside on Lombard.  We drove down it last time we were here.  It is twisty and filled with flowers from the houses on each side.  They have cops directing traffic at the top and the bottom.  We walked down the hill on the sidewalk. 

Near Lombard

the top

halfway down

at the bottom

Next, we tried to make our way to the closest BART stop, but gave up and called an Uber.  We went to “The Painted Ladies” by Alamo Square.  Painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses that are painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance the architectural details.  There are a row of them across the street from the park that are frequently photographed.  While we were sitting quietly on the crowded hillside, a man started running up and down the park path with only a thong on.  He was obviously looking for attention.  Whatever floats his boat and I don’t need to look if I don’t like it (so I didn’t).  Later, Randy noticed him laying a ways away and we looked to see him almost completely naked.  He had removed the thong and it looked like he had laid it over or wrapped it around his privates.  Hmmmm.  Well, we walked around the park, looking at some of the other painted lady houses nearby then called another Uber to go back to the hotel. 

The Painted Ladies

Some other painted ladies

And another

Joshua and I

Joshua visited the man offering Free Advice

We had eaten lunch at a café near the pier, so we just ate dinner again at the hotel restaurant (since our feet still hurt too much to walk a few miles to find dinner).  Tomorrow we head to Hong Kong after breakfast.