We arrived in San Francisco after a long and interesting bus ride from LA. This is a story I will have to save until we see you all in person! But it was good to finally be here! We checked into our hotel and had dinner and pretty much went to bed as it was quite late already. Our hotel was pretty conveniently located to Union Square, one of the main shopping and touristy areas, so the next day we checked out that area and the area around our hotel.
The next morning we went to check out some of the hop-on-hop-off tours and planned to get a 2-day pass for about $30 which seemed good. When we got talking to the guy we barely had to say anything and he let us have 4 different loops for 4 days for only $30! Normally this would have cost about $100! So we were very pleased with this as it was a good means of transport around town!
Throughout the next four days we saw some great things around San Fran. We saw Chinatown, Washington Square, Financial District, Lombard St (the crookedest st in the world - but so pretty! We hiked up to the top and saw the amazing view and then walked back down - we slept well that night!), Coit Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park (which was absolutely massive!), the Painted Ladies Houses which were beautiful and such an iconic sight to see, Ghirradelli Square, Civic Centre and of course Fisherman's Wharf. And of course we took a ride on the famous Cable Car which was a lot of fun!
There was always something going on down at Fisherman's Wharf and we also managed to take a bay cruise that was included with our hotel booking, so that was nice. On the fourth of July they had lots of concerts and activities going on as well as Fireworks at night which were really cool. We also saw the famous sea lions at Pier 39, however there weren't many there because they had all swam off somewhere for breeding season. It would have been cool to see the place swarming with sea lions!
When we arrived in San Fran we had planned to go over to Alcatraz Island and do a tour. We nearly bought our tickets online a few months back but we figured we'd just get them when we got to San Fran. Little did we know it actually sells out! Especially in the summer holidays! So we were getting quite upset because we just couldn't seem to find any tickets at all for the week we were there and we really wanted to go over to the island. We managed to get some insider info and apparently if you went to the office really early in the morning, they have 150 same-day tickets available, you just have to be in the front of the line! Apparently some people get there at 5am! So we set the alarm nice and early and arrived down there at 6:45am and there was already about 40 people in front of us. The office didn't open til 8am but luckily we got the tickets! It was all worth it!
So a few hours later, we headed out to Alcatraz and explored the island that used to be one of the most notorious prisons. We got to do a self-guided audio tour through the cell-house and around the buildings. It was very interesting and we spent about 4 hours at the island. We both really enjoyed it and were so glad we got to do it!
We both really liked San Francisco as there were so many things to do, but it was generally just a nice place to be. It would have to be one of our favourite places so far! On our last day we packed up all our gear and got the subway out to San Francisco Airport to head to fabulous Las Vegas - our last stop!
Stay tuned for the Las Vegas blog, should be up tomorrow! See you all soon!
Love Hayley & Shaun
Union Square
Painted Ladies
Cable Car
View of the City
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