San Francisco

We arrived into San Francisco after transferring at Los Angeles late on wednesday the 17th June... it was like ground hog day as we had left Auckland at 6pm on wednesday the 27th and got into San Francisco at 9pm the same day - very weird and it took us a few days to get the body clocks adjusted.

We stayed at the Heritage Marina hotel which is very near the Fishermans Wharf but their record keeping leaves a lot to be desired - we waited for an hour for our room but when we opened the door someone was already in there, but hotel staff ensured us they had checked out so they took all their clothes etc out of the room and in we went... only to get a knock/bang at the door by that resident at 12am that night! She wasnt happy and had to go and get another room... only in America!

San Francisco is really gorgoeous - so chilled out and relaxed we immediately loved it not to mention the warmer weather! It was a 20 minute walk into town and the wharf/pier area. On our first day we just walked about and booked some tours out to Alcatraz and Angel Islands, which was just as well as there was a 2 day wait for tickets! The restaurants and fish especially are gorgeous, their speciality being Dunge crab...

The city is very accessible and we walked all around the trendy north beach, seen the famous sentinel building owned by film maker Francis Ford Coppola and the Vesuvio bar, not to mention the street entertainment!

Our hotel was also minutes from the famous crookedest street - Lombard street, but instead of walking down it we walked up! pretty cool though as you can get great views from the top but its always busy with tourists doing the same as us or traffic jams as others want to experience the novelty of driving down it.. once we got to the top though we got the cable car down again!

On the saturday after chilling out for our first few days we went on the tour for angel island. It was lovely - the whole island is a national park now but was once the immigration centre and then a military base, the views from the island of the golden gate bridge and the san francisco coast line are fab..

After Angel island we decided to hire some bicycles and ride across the golden gate bridge and the surrounding area. Very cheap to do but it was brilliant, the area around the bridge is really scenic, once you got to the bridge the wind picks up and you had to hold on!.. it was great though one of the best things we did..

After congratulating ourselves that night we were up bright and early the following day for our boat trip over to Alcatraz island - Alcatraz spanish for Pelican, which we soon found out as there are birds everywhere...

The tour price includes your boat and fee into the jail and we thought it was brilliant. The audio on it was super and it gave you a great insight into life on Alcatraz and the islands history, not to mention the views from the island and the bird wildlife and gardens surrounding it, or the fact that it was claimed by the indians for 16months after the jail closed..

It was quite eery walking through the history of the place knowing what went on with the noises to let you be part of it and well worth the fee. Ger even got to check out some of the gardens and felt slightly at home but they had the fire engines and escape routes all on show as well..

We left San francisco heading for the rockies then on the 2nd June but of course not before we visited the Ghirardelli chocolate factory!!