Fisherman’s Wharf & Lombard Street 6.17.08

We continued on our city tour of San Francisco. We arrived just before noon and had lunch at a great little sidewalk/alley café in the financial district. Today was a bit of ‘things we missed’ day – we walked up to see the dragon gate in Chinatown (how did we miss that!),



found the fortune cookie company that sells ‘French’ fortune cookies with suggestive fortunes inside, walked up, down, & up again until we found the Fairmont Hotel (those are some steep hills!!),



magically ended up at the Cable Car Barn & Powerhouse (where all of the Cable Cars are ‘driven’…fascinating!), then we jumped on a cable car that took us to Fisherman’s Wharf. Fisherman’s was a huge mecca of any possible item you wished to purchase and was absolutely packed with people!! We stopped for the obligatory clam chowder at Fisherman’s and checked out the ships in the Maritime Museum,



went to the Mechanique Museum that was a bunch of quarter operated old machines – pinball machines, the old crank movies, player piano’s, etc. We walked up to Pier 39, a 3 story shoppers mecca and when we had seen it all, decided to take the cable car up to Lombard Street to see the ‘crookedest street in the world!” When we got to the cable car stop, there were at least 200 people standing in line so we said – let’s hoof it! Let me tell you…walking down Lombard Street is difficult. Walking UP to Lombard street is VERY difficult!! But, you’ll be amazed to know, the Cable Car only beat us to the top by mere seconds…even though we were quite a bit more winded than they were.



Once we finished with Lombard street, we hopped aboard another Cable Car heading back to our BART station and attached is the entrance to the Westfield Mall – another huge shopping mecca! We went inside & walked around, buying last minute items (San Francisco Salami, & Coffee) and then BART’d back to the Jeep. Now the parking at the BART station is $1/day and we remembered after we were halfway to our destination that we had forgotten to pay the $1!! We asked at the next station, but it was too late – impossible to pay. Lo & behold…there was a shiny $35 ticket waiting for us when we returned…bummer. We called to plead our case but were told we would have to write a letter. We hope we’ll get lucky!!

So I almost got to see everything I had planned – missed a few minor things…but all in all we walked a ton of miles, and saw much of the city. I could spend days in some of the spots we have seen though and completely understand the lure of the city. The city is so unique and inviting, I loved it.

More to follow…Rene