Adventures: San Francisco, September 13-19, 2016: Day One in the City Sept. 14

On the morning of our first day, we took a shuttle tour of the city.
Looking up, the Hyatt Regency is the first thing you see when you come up the escalator out of the subway into an area called The Embarcadero. My most favorite place to start the day.

This was the first cable car I saw. By the end of the trip, I was sort of getting used to the vertical elevation of the hills.

Kurt and I picked up breakfast at a French bakery called Le Chat Rouge and while we waited for a bus/streetcar back to the Ferry Building, I saw the Transamerica Building in the dawn's early light (mobile phone pic):

This is the view of the west span of the Bay Bridge from the docks at the Ferry Building:

We caught our shuttle outside the Ferry Building. The first stop was a short walk up to the top of the curvy section of Lombard Street. These bricks were pointed out to us as some of the bricks recovered from the great earthquake and fire of 1906. These bricks expanded in the heat of the fire that resulted from the disaster. Everything that was salvageable was used to help rebuild the city.

Also along the way, we a glimpse of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill in the distance as well as my first sighting of Alcatraz in the bay.

Finally after a walk, we arrived at the top of Lombard Street and started to make our way down the sidewalk.

Then we arrived at the bottom of the part:

The bottom of the next hill (which we passed the house from The Real World: San Francisco on the way), we came upon the house Jimmy Stewart's character lived in in VERTIGO. It has been modified from the way it appeared in the film (mobile phone pic).

The next stop on the tour was the Cable Car Museum. I had no idea the cables for every line in the city spins back to this place and gets cycled back out to the route.

The next stop on the tour was Chinatown. We got to walk the streets and venture down an alleyway to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory where we got to sample warm fortune cookie discs. Some of the intricate architecture in Chinatown was very impressive:

Next stop, Grace Episcopalian Cathedral. This is such a beautiful place. I was crazy about the stained glass and the patterns it made.

Next, we went to see The Painted Ladies, the five historic Victorian homes on the edge of Alamo Square Park. The park was being renovated so the green grass I was looking forward to was non-existent. We walked up the sidewalk next to the park and I was more impressed with the city view than I was with the homes.

Next stop was The Palace of the Arts, a performing arts venue. It was so beautiful.

I had no idea when we were at the Palace of Fine Arts that we were only a hair's breath away from my whole purpose of coming to San Francisco: To be at The Golden Gate Bridge. My first glimpse was so exciting:

We did not stop on the San Francisco side, we crossed on the shuttle bus and pulled down to a landing on the Marin County side. Took a mobile phone selfie and a pic of Kurt.

Then took some digital camera pics. The tour guide also took a pic of us.

We had lunch in Sausalito then met at this elephant statue before boarding a ferry back to San Francisco:

On the way back to the city, we had our first close contact with Alcatraz.

Back on land at the Ferry Building, the tour ended. We went back to the Ferry Building to look around a bit. The building survived the 1906 earthquake and was refurbished a few years ago and it is now a marketplace.