San Francisco

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Kate and I spent a few days in San Francisco in late May of 2013. Kate had a conference at the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill where we stayed. As neither of us were in any shape to do much tromping about we took a couple of bus tours instead. It's a city we really enjoy, hope you enjoy the photos.

Usually at this time of year we would have been at the KBS meeting which this year was held in Uganda. But we had been to Uganda not that long ago.

The Mark Hopkins is a pretty swank hotel — very comfortable. And we had a very nice room. The "Top of the Mark" is a restaurant with a wide sweeping view of the city. The picture at left, of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid in the business district, was taken from that restaurant.

Just down the street a little to the west is Huntington Park and the Grace Cathedral. The park has some lovely statues including a faithful reproduction of the "Fontana delle Tartarughe" (the turtle fountain) which I recall stumbling across with Kate one evening in Rome. The original is from 1580-88 with turtles added 1658-59. This one is much newer. The Grace Cathedral, at the west end of the park, is well worth a visit. It has beautiful ornate brass doors that remind me of the doors to the cathedral in Florence. There are some lovely murals inside. They are contemporary (murals by Polish-born John De Rosen (1949-50) and Bolivian-born Antonio Sotomayor (1982-83)) and quite impressive. The Mary of Magdala is quite impressive as is the story of the painting and the egg (chase the link).

From the Mark Hopkins we had easy access to the cable cars on Powell (running roughly north/south) and California (running east/west). Down Powell towards Market (where the Powell line ends with a turntable for the cable cars) is Union Square. A nice area to hang out on a sunny day.

Near the square we caught a open air bus tour of the city. I was having trouble with plantar fasciitis which made walking hard. From the bus tour we tramped around Fisherman's Wharf and saw some of the racing sail boats practicing for the America's cup race.

In Chinatown Kate and I had a very hot Sichuan lunch. The one pot was thick with hot red peppers, but still not too hot. I asked the waitress if I could have some utensils (a knife, fork and spoon would have been nice) for my meal. She politely, but firmly, answered "No". If chop sticks are all you have you quickly learn how to use them.

Lombard street, the crookedest street in all of San Francisco, is worth a visit. I'd hate to live on that street as there's lots of tourists snapping away (like me) and others taking their cars down the hill.

We visited the City Hall and actually did a bit of a tour. There's lots to see here. Most impressive is the renovations to earth-quake proof the building. The dug underneath the foundations to install sliding jacks to support the building.

We visited the Golden Gate bridge from the bus tour. From the north side there are good views of the city. Lastly we visited the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District. It's all that remains of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (somewhat like how the Eiffel Tower is all that remains of 1889 Exposition Universelle).

We also did a winery tour out of the city, to Sonoma to the north, but that's for another blog.