A Day in San Francisco

Oct. 2021

Ideally, we needed more than one day to explore San Francisco. However, we were staying over an hour away, (more like an hour an a half when factoring in traffic slowdowns), and we just didn’t want to deal with the crazy highway traffic that wore us out. So, we crammed in the highlights that we really wanted to see into one day. We had been to Chinatown many years ago, so we skipped that this time.

We began our day by crossing the Golden Gate Bridge south from Marin County, and we meant to exit Hwy 101 at the very first exit, to go to Fort Point National Historic Site, for a view of the bridge from below. But the exit was not well marked, so we missed it, even though we were using our GPS. We ended up going to the Palace of Fine Arts, first, instead, since it was close by. It was built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, and was well-worth the stop. We walked all around it.

We then backtracked on our route to go to Fort Point, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is managed by the National Park Service. It is also part of the Presidio, which is a big park (which we did not have time to explore) and former U.S. Army post. But, we were able to walk all through Fort Point and learn a little history of the area. Fort Point was built between 1853 and 1861 to defend San Francisco Bay. On the day we visited, it was foggy around the bridge, although the bay itself was fine. In fact, it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day in the city. But, the fog made it hard to take a good photo of the bridge.

View of the lighthouse on top of Fort Point

We liked the symmetry of these doorways! There were historical exhibits in these rooms.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the roof of Fort Point

Our next stop was Golden Gate Park. The park is so huge that we could not see much in the short time we had. We had heard good things about the Japanese Tea Garden, and we somehow managed to nab a good parking spot close by, which was quite a feat, considering it was a beautiful Saturday, and it seemed everyone in the city was outside enjoying the day. We were a little disappointed with the garden, because it was smaller than we expected. We were spoiled when we lived in St. Louis, because we could visit the fabulous Japanese garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden whenever we wanted. So I guess the little Tea Garden just couldn’t compare, in our opinion.

This structure was cute. The big pagoda was undergoing renovations and was completely covered up, so we missed that.

After sitting in the shade to eat a little snack, we walked to the rose garden, and then decided to continue our tour of the city. We hopped in the car and drove to the Alamo Square park to see the “Painted Ladies” Victorian houses. The architecture in the city is really beautiful. There are lots of interesting houses all over, but these Painted Ladies on Steiner Street are the most famous. We climbed part way up the steep hill in the park so we could get a good view of the houses and the city in the background. We were a little disappointed that the houses were somewhat obscured by the overgrown trees in front of them, so they looked different from photos we had seen of them.

From there, we went to Lombard Street, the “Crookedest Street in the World”. This part of the city is where it gets really hilly. The streets are just as steep as they look in the movies! Yikes! We again managed to find a close-by parking spot near the bottom of the street, and joined many other people to watch cars slowly snake down the street. The street was lined with beautiful blooming hydrangeas, but the bushes were so tall, that we could barely see the curves of the street or the cars coming down the hill. Craig walked up the stairs along the side of the street to try to get a better view. This was one of those “Ok, we’ve seen it, now we can cross it off our bucket list” moments. It was just ok.

We then tried to go to Coit Tower to see the view of the city and the bay from there, but the parking lot at the top of the hill is very small, and since no parking was available, we had to skip it. We drove back north on the Golden Gate Bridge so we could see the bridge and city views from the Marin Headlands. But, the fog was starting to roll in under the bridge from the ocean into the bay. We were able to see the view fairly well from high up, but the lower and closer we got to the bridge tower, the worse the fog was.

There was so much more we did not get to see. We were thinking about visiting Muir Woods and other spots in Marin County on another day, but since we had had to drive so much and so far in one day, we just didn’t want to do that again. Maybe next spring, if we can find a closer campground that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg!