Day 19: San Francisco

Thursday December 12, 2013

We planned today as a walking day. We wanted to get to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, and whatever else struck our fancy.

With a late start to a leisurely morning, we walked from our hotel and headed for the famous Cafe Trieste. Along the way we passed an iconic landmark of the San Francisco skyline, the Transamerica Life building:

Then to Cafe Trieste for a couple lattes and pastries.

As we left there, this chap spotted Brian wearing his Winnipeg Jets golf shirt. Turns out this guy - Tony - is from Winnipeg and is now working in the financial services industry in San Francisco. He grew up in River Heights, and began a series of consulting gigs a dozen years ago. To no one's surprise, he does not miss the cold winters at all.

We then decided to walk through the North Beach neighbourhood toward Telegraph Hill. There are some really nice houses and apartments here.

The view from Telegraph Hill is spectacular:

That's Coit Tower just behind the tree. It's closed until spring 2014 for maintenance and renovations.

Down the hill toward Fisherman's Wharf. Hopefully this picture gives you an idea just how steep these hills are:

Once on Fisherman's Wharf, as usual I got scared again by the Bushman. This guy has been scaring people for 35 years. He's even mentioned in the CAA/AAA travel guide:

Lunch was clam and crab chowder in a sourdough breadbowl. And yes, authentic San Francisco sourdough bread cannot be beat.

Following lunch we jumped on a cable car to take the Powell-Hyde line up to California Street.

 

And little cable cars

Climb halfway to the stars.

- Tony Bennett

The clatter of the wheels, the clicking of the cables beneath the streets, the sound of the bell, all these are unforgettable sounds of San Francisco. It really is a most beautiful city. Yes, we once again left our hearts in San Francisco.

Got off the cable car and walked down California to Chinatown for some shopping:

Anyone recognize the brown building on the right of this picture?

It's the Bank of America building, better known as The Towering Inferno. Yep, this is the building used in that 1970s disaster movie.

Chinatown:

Back at our hotel, we asked the concierge for a recommendation for seafood. We ended up at George's two blocks away. Some scrumptious oysters for an appetizer:

Crab season opened just over a week ago, so we each had a Dungeness crab:

Paired with a great California Savignon Blanc, it made a truly memorable evening for our last dinner in San Francisco.

Tomorrow: check out of our hotel then head to the airport for our flight home.

It was +15C and sunny for our entire stay in San Francisco. We certainly are not looking forward to -27C in Winnipeg, but it will be good to be home.

Day 18: Napa and Sonoma

Wednesday December 11, 2013

Today we went on a wine country tour. We booked it last night after consulting with Lex, the very helpful concierge here at the Omni San Francisco. The deal was a bus from Tower Tours picked us up at our hotel, took us to their head shed on Fisherman's Wharf where we paid the fee, then we jump on their bus to take us on the tour.

It was really cool. First we drive across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland. There are two segments to this bridge. The first from San Francisco to Treasure Island:

After driving through a tunnel, we're on the segment that takes us to Oakland. This is the new part as the old one had to be replaced because it could not be brought up to current earthquake code:

Many hundreds of millions of dollars must be going into this new bridge. It is impressive.

Our first stop was Madonna Estate in Napa Valley.

Maurice was our host and he gave us a brief talk on the history of the winery.

Those are grape vines in the background. The growing season is over, but they will bloom again sometime in March. These folks have been around since the early 1900s, so they certainly pre-date the pop star.

He took us into the cellar. In front of us were barrels of wine that are aging.

Then came the fun part.

We got to taste five different varietals, but the Pinot Noir really impressed us. So we bought a bottle.

We then went to Yountville for lunch. We stopped at this wonderful little shopping area and ate at the Napa Style Grill.

Sutter Home was our next stop:

After sampling a half dozen of their wines, we went over to Sonoma valley for our third and final stop at Sebastiani:

Our host gave is a fascinating summary of the history of the winery, then she had us sample five of their wines.

The name Sebastiani sounded very familiar to us. As it turned out, their Cabernet Sauvignon was on our list of favourite wines that we've been compiling for the last several years.

Back on the bus, we returned to San Francisco via the famous Golden Gate Bridge:

What a day!