Streets of San Francisco, end of the first day

To read previous part click here -> San Francisco, same day, hotel...

Have any desire to continue walking on San Francisco streets? We had! And so once we unpacked we left the San Remo hotel and almost ran towards downtown. The night was coming and we wanted to see some of the city while we still had time. And we decided we will walk and discover the city treasures until we drop dead ;)

 

First, we really wanted to see Lombard St. This is an amazing place. It is famous for having a steep, one-block section that consists of eight tight hairpin turns that are said to make it the crookedest street in the world. The design, first suggested by property owner Carl Henry and built in 1922, was intended to reduce the hill's natural 27% grade, which was too steep for most vehicles. We heard from our friends that driving there is a real adventure, but we had no car, so we walked :) And also the views from this street down the road are incredible!

The next stop we planned (if you can plan walking the random streets and taking the random turns) was to see the Golden Gate Bridge, so we turned to the bay and passed a really nice looking house. Hm... I'd better say houses...

When we reached our destination we understood the luck just left us - despite the sunny day, the bridge was hidden in the fog. Let's call it luck though - this is a puzzle picture, can you find the Golden Gate here?

Once we stopped and looked around we found a line. The short line to ride the cable car. The short meaning is you need to wait no longer than half an hour. The longer one means you stay there and wait for two or more hours... That was definitely our lucky day! Riding a cable car is a very popular tourist attraction and we couldn't miss it too :-) Weren't we just regular tourists on this day?

The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last manually operated cable car system. An icon of San Francisco, California, the cable car system forms part of the intermodal urban transport network operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, or "Muni" as it is better known. Of the twenty-three lines established between 1873 and 1890,three remain (one of which combines parts of two earlier lines): two routes from downtown near Union Square to Fisherman's Wharf, and a third route along California Street. While the cable cars are used to a certain extent by commuters, the vast majority of their 7 million annual passengers are tourists.

The best attraction here is to watch how they turn the car on the last station - the driver does it by hand (no joke!) on the special turn circle. Looks very nice and impressive by the way.

We waited until our turn and took the Cable Car and rode it for a while, but finally we got off cuz we wanted to see more of the city. We disembarked at Chinatown (and the proper way of doing it is jumping off the car when it was still moving). San Francisco Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. This evening we were just passing by so just a few views were captured.

Walking through downtown is always a pleasure. Doesn't matter what the city is and if it's small or big. But in San Francisco we almost got lost between skyscrapers and were happy to come to the Embarcadero. By the way, it was interesting to see how the tops of the buildings were hidden and the fog (or should I say "don't see"?). 

 

Downtown and no skyscrapers? Doesn't feel right but don't you worry... there are plenty of those in San Francisco ;)

By this time it was late and dark. Looking at the bay we had a nice view of the Oakland Bay Bridge and looking the other way we could see downtown. It quickly became chilly and we didn't have proper clothes to keep us warm so we took the hint and left for the hotel. Also... it would be wrong to say we were tired... because we were absolutely exhausted and literally moving out feel using will-power only. But the idea to have some rest in the nice, old and atmospheric hotel helped us to walk there surprisingly fast...

To continue reading click here -> San Francisco, day second, the morning...

Pictures were taken on August 30, 2011.