This is a post that is long overdue (actually, it’ll be two posts). I’ve been putting it off because there were so many pictures I wanted to share, but adding images can be a little time intensive.
In April, Taylor and I went to San Francisco. Taylor had a conference, and I tagged along. Last June we honeymooned in California and stayed in San Francisco a portion of our time, so we loved it, and were excited to be back so soon after our honeymoon. (In fact we were there exactly one year ago!)
The trip didn’t disappoint, and since I never did get around to sharing pictures from the honeymoon, these will have to suffice. I promise you’ll enjoy them. But first, get yourself a snack and something to drink, this will take a while.
When we arrived in SF we hit the ground running. We picked up the rental car, and made a last-minute reservation to see the Castello di Amorosa. It’s a full size replica castle and winery. We’d done the tour and tasting our honeymoon, and it was worth it enough to go back and for us to bring a friend. This is a fresco painted in the chapel, that holds a Sunday morning Latin Mass.
And this one is in the great banquet hall. Some of the fixtures are from actual old castles.
This time I stopped to take a picture of the Napa sign, something I didn’t even see last time we were there.
We would have liked to stay longer and visit a few more wineries, but we were exhausted from being up before 5am to catch our flight. So we drove the 2ish hours back to San Francisco to check into our hotel.
The hotel was beautiful, and located right in Union Square. As we were checking in we inquired into making sure we were in the nicer part of the building, rather than the historic part, since we’d heard the historic part was more old than charming. The person checking us in offered us a room in the new section of the hotel. He sold it as being bigger than regular sized rooms, for the same price, only that it had a Murphy bed. I double checked that the Murphy bed would be just as “heavenly” as all their other beds, and we were assured it would be. I should have known better.
The queen sized Murphy bed was most certainly not “heavenly” and in fact squeaked and creaked all through the night. To make matters worse, we were on the corner of the building and in addition to the wind whipping around the building, wafting up from the streets were the sounds of a panhandler drumming on some buckets and the light pole. I was exhausted, and couldn’t really handle the drumming, so I called downstairs to guest services to find out what the deal was, and when the music would stop. 10PM. It was only in the 8 o’clock hour so I was offered some earplugs. I thought I could handle it, so I politely declined. But after only a few minutes I called back and took them up on their offer of the earplugs. They showed up nearly an hour after my request, so I put in the earplugs and drifted off to bed. The next day I was still a little pissed that the guy at the front lied to us about the “heavenly” qualities of the bed. So I marched down to the front desk to ask if there was another room available. I kindly explained that the bed wasn’t what the original guy made it out to be, and that we’d like to switch. Fortunately, we were able to switch, and spent the remainder of our nights in a bed that was actually heavenly, and king sized for that matter. We could still hear the panhandler one man band, but it was more tolerable a few floors up. And thanks to the earplugs.
I was free to roam around by myself most of the days since Taylor was in conference sessions. One of my favorite things is sightseeing all by myself. It means I don’t have to worry about what someone else wants to do, and I can go back to the hotel whenever I am ready. One of the days I set out in the morning and walked forever. (Although I didn’t actually calculate my mileage, I estimate I probably walked about 15 or 20 miles in the 6 days we were in SF.)
The hotel wasn’t far from Chinatown, so I took off in that direction. Although I didn’t buy anything in Chinatown, I did enjoy checking out the shops and the sights.
Not long after I was out of Chinatown, it started to rain so I ducked into Caffe Trieste (the North Beach location) and ordered a cappuccino and a bagel. Thank goodness I had a little bit of cash on me, since they didn’t take plastic. The bagel was delicious and the cappuccino was authentically Italian. I’d love to live close by, I’d go there all the time. They even have Saturday afternoon concerts.
Once I finished, and the rain let up, I headed back on my trek toward Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill. The walk really wasn’t that far, but it was very humid since it had been raining, so I was getting a little bit annoyed with my coat and shoved it into my bag.
Not far from the tower is the magnificent Saints Peter and Paul Church. I didn’t go in but should have. It’s a magnificent building.
The street that runs right in front of the church heads up toward Coit Tower, so I made a right turn and headed up a very steep street. The tower is on top of Telegraph Hill. I unfortunately didn’t see any of the famed wild parrots, but the hill was very beautiful. I couldn’t believe there were houses up there.
Inside the tower are brightly painted murals illustrating the industries of California.
The ride to the top of the tower cost me a couple bucks, but it was worth it, despite the rain.
There’s not much at the top of the tower, so after looking around a bit I headed back down, and then continued on my walk. I had read about some stairway walks at Telegraph Hill, so I headed down one of a couple stairways.
I didn’t find the tiled stairway I was hoping to find, but I did stumble upon a magical garden stairway that continued for what seemed like forever. The stairways continued steeply down the hill, passing right through people’s backyards.
I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this perfect calla lily growing in someone’s garden.
Off and on it would rain, and I’d need to get my umbrella out. But that didn’t stop me from taking pictures.
Toward the end of the day, I was soaked from the bottom up and headed back to the hotel to dry off. It rained nearly every day, so I’d go back to the hotel in the afternoon and hang up my jeans in on the shower curtain rod, and watch TV while I waited for Taylor to get back from his meetings.
And now I awkwardly end this post, since I have WAY too many pictures and stories for this one post.
