Saturday 10th May
Our first full day in California. As usual for a day early on in the holiday, we were awake early even without an alarm clock. Just before 5am I think. Still, at least it wasn't something like 1am as has happened before.
The sun was out again today - the sky almost cloudless - yet it never got really hot, instead we had some breezes coming from the bay to keep the temperature and humidity manageable.
We skipped breakfast and instead headed up one of the nearby streets, our destination was Lombard Street - specifically the world famous 'twisty street' part. This is the road which is very steep and has a twisting back route that is challenging to walk down, let alone drive down.
To get to Lombard street, we had to negotiate the steep hills leading up to Lombard. They were quite steep in places.
Going Up
Fortunately, the climb didn't last too long. We both made it to the top. Lombard Street was very busy with queues of cars all wanting to drive down the famous hill. There was also a sizeable number of people wandering about taking photos.
More people than cars
This little character was flitting about on some nearby shrubs. Possibly the first time I'd actually seen a hummingbird in either captivity or in the wild. Pretty stunning little thing.
Unusual Wildlife
We walked down to the bottom of Lombard Street and carried on walking.
We walked on some more and stopped off at a coffee shop. Whilst waiting to get served, we were asked by a nearby elderly guy where we are from. As this ofter gets asked, we replied with our default 'London'. But he wanted to know more specifically. When I said Barking, he looked at us and said 'Bobby Moore'. Turns out that he had known Bobby Moore during his playing days and had competed against him in a match when Bobby had played in the US. Perhaps he recognised the East London accent! Odd.
Have one on me
After our break, we headed back up the hills towards a place called Telegraph Hill and its accompanying Coit Tower. Once again the steep roads kicked in.
Back on the road again
Once at the top, we stopped for a breather and took some photos of the distant landscape all around us. The tower itself was closed for refurbishment. It's meant to reopen Spring 2014. Guess we're a bit too early.
Golden Gate Bridge on the bay
We then descended a large set of stairs to get back to ground level.
Mind the gap
Once back on the ground, so to speak, we walked around to the main Pier area. By the time we'd reached the sea lions on Pier 39 we were feeing the call of the hotel for a bit of a rest. Our final route is attached at the bottom of the page.
We rested up at the hotel for a couple of hours before returning out to get something for dinner. We'd hoped to go to the Rainforest Cafe tonight, but they were turning away people with 2 hour+ wait to be seated. So instead we crossed the road and had a rustic tomato soup in a sour-dough loaf.
It didn't leak!
A quick walk up to the park and back, before returning to the hotel.