Walking San Francisco

It’s 9:30 pm and we just came back by bus from an excellent meal in „Verbena“, a new restaurant we've been sent over to by a long-time contact in San Francisco's restaurant business. Some of our friends would call it „chi-chi food“, but, though portions were small, it was highly creative and interesting: small plates with items called „Koji quail. Sonoma grains cooked dirty. Bacio di Satana brown butter“ or „Sardine cauliflower, horseradish, trout roe“. We had four different plates plus two desserts in total, very delicious. The restaurant operates its own farm in Berkeley where most of the ingredients come from.

Boy, we did a lot of walking today! Not only that we checked out various neighborhoods on our own – like Chinatown (Stockton Street was packed on a sunday and asparagus was $ 1 a pound!), Union Square, Cow Hollow, Marina, but we also had an „Urban Hike“, a tour with a pretty new company offering hikes in the city. Johnny guided us for about 2,5 hours and 5 mi. plus a couple of hundreds of stairs in the Presidio neighborhood.

We hiked in the Presidio National Recreational Area (similar to a National Park), mostly through an Eucalyptus forest, stopping at a couple of magnificent viewpoints. When we heard the foghorns again we remembered how many different microclimates San Francisco has: it was clear, warm and sunny in the city center, but foggy and cool at the waterfront. The Presidio was settled by Native Americans, then it became the Spanish empire's northernmost military outpost from 1776 to 1821 and later, in 1846, an U.S. Army Post. Now not only a hotel, the Presidio Inn, but also the Walt Disney Family Museum are situated here.

When we drove into San Francisco on saturday afternoon we marveled again how spectacular the setting is, especially without fog and in the sunshine.

Stopped at the Marin Headlands Vistapoint at Conzelman Road and since the parking lot was crowded we had to hike up to enjoy the view.Since it was a weekend and St. Patrick’s Day in addition, roads were packed and traffic was crazy. Crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove to our hotel in North Beach to check in. They've recently introduced a new strange toll system: no cash anymore, but pre-payment on the internet. Not sure how the rental car company will handle it...

The „San Remo“ where we have stayed during one of our very first trips in the 1990s has some sort of 68s-flair: rooms are small, if not tiny, bathrooms and showers in the hallway, very clean, good location, but somehow „different“. Mostly hippie clientèle, at least our age...
We were fortunate and got two rooms, one serving as our „luggage room“, one as our bedroom with a queen-size bed and a sink. After check-in and unloading it took us about 40 min. to get to the airport to return our rental car, then almost another 1,5 hours to get back into town by public transport.

We went directly to Pier 39 where we had dinner arranged at one of the rather touristic, but pretty good seafood restaurants (Fog Harbor Fish House) on the waterfront where we enjoyed Lobster Mac&Cheese and Grilled Fish. Service was quick and therefore we got to enjoy the sunset with incoming fog...