San Francisco Hop-on Hop-off Bus

/ Garrulous Gwendoline

Wednesday 23rd May 2018

Despite waking to a cold and drizzly day we went ahead with our plan to ride the hop-on hop-off bus and made sure we were on the first one of the day. Although light, the rain was obscuring much of the long-distance vista and eventually all of us, including the commentary guide, retreated from the open top deck. The odd thing was that this particular bus had a solid metal wall between the driver and the passengers, so we couldn’t look forward to spot things that the guide was telling us was coming up either.

Nevertheless, the guide was a font of useful and historic information which he delivered rapid-fire, and we carried on undaunted with almost one full loop to orient ourselves. Luckily the weather cleared when we reached Lombard Street, so we could take our time walking up the steep incline which brought us to the base of the sixteen switchbacks which make this ” the crookedest street in the world”. We walked up one side and down the other, all the while admiring the beautiful gardens and watching tourist cars snaking their way down the street.

Rejoining a bus, we were soon at Fisherman’s Wharf which we’d explored the day before. This is also the official starting point of the bus run so we had to swap to another. This guide was highly entertaining and easy to understand, albeit a little lighter on facts. Where we covered ground we’d already done earlier, it was interesting to compare and blend the two sets of information. By this stage the rain had gone, although it was still cold on the upper deck, but we coped as we’d come prepared.

We got off again to explore the Palace of Fine Arts, which is best explained as a mock Roman (or Greek?) temple ruin. The structure of Corinthian columns and domed pergola was built for a trade fair in the early 20th century, after the great fire of 1906 and part of the city’s revitalisation. Not the kind of thing which comes immediately to mind when one thinks of San Francisco – which is of course the Golden Gate bridge, which on our second time around this loop revealed itself much more clearly.

As did the Golden Gate Park – two completely different aspects between rain and dry. Hopefully we will return tomorrow to spend a couple of hours there.

Alongside the park is the beginning of the Haight-Ashbury area and this time we left the bus to join a one-hour walking tour. We spent time in the Main Street – one shop had vintage clothing sorted into decades. The flapper dresses of the 1920s were magnificent. Of course we heard about the hippie era and the summer of love, but we also heard about the eras before and post that time. Then we got into looking at the various glorious Victorian and Edwardian houses, heard a few stories about the singers and poets who’d rented there and also the background to why some of the houses were stripped of embellishment when that style fell out of fashion. Saw many murals of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. Our guide, John “Wheels” Wheeler gave us great information and took pains to point out one of the houses that was in pre-restoration condition, to help us gain perspective on why at one time it had been a cheaper area to live.

Rejoining yet another bus, we toyed with exploring even further, for example, Chinatown, or the area around the fabulous City Hall, or more “painted ladies” in Alamo Square. Once we’d gotten comfortable with the layout and the areas of San Francisco we could have gone on and on, except that it had already gone 5pm and our energy was flagging. We settled for a walk back to our hotel from Union Square and an earliesh dinner at our hotel.

There’s always tomorrow to see more things under our own steam. At least I hope so.

 

 

 

 

 

19 thoughts on “San Francisco Hop-on Hop-off Bus”

    • Because of timing we never got off at Alamo Square to see the “famous” painted ladies, but we saw plenty of their ilk in our travels around the city, and also Edwardian and other styles. It seems all the real estate in SF is a million dollars plus, although the top notch prices seemed a bit tame to us by Sydney prices. eg 4 Mill at the upper end.And I’m not sure if I heard correctly, but I understood that the median pay for a professional of the Google/Twitter employee class earns 200’ooo Us per annum. Completely different for the hospitality employees, although why their employers can’t pay them a living wage beats me because the prices were on a par with Sydney’s, and even higher if you calculated via the exchange rate.

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      • Some great eating places in SF, best Chinese I’ve ever had Pizza’s to die for, and Fisherman’s wharf for crabs, the edible kind 🙂
        I never went north in Ca went south to Steinbeck country, and the Yosemite NP

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        • We had Chinese first day. Schezuan specialty, very spicy. We saw the crabs at Fishermans but I didn’t have any until last night in Oregon – Dungeness, not blue swimmer. Pizza is off the menu, Bill is gluten free. I did enjoy both sole and trout while in SF, and lamb shanks in a Moroccan Tagine.
          I’ll write my Northern California stories “soon”.

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  4. Sorry the weather isn’t behaving Gwen – but that’s San Francisco… The VERY best weather happens during Indian Summer in September – October and on those days it’s heaven :). There are pockets of the city protected from the fog – Potrero Hill is sometimes sunny when everywhere else is a mass of drizzle. The Sunset is almost always foggy. The Upper Haight (Ashbury Heights) is decidedly different than the Haight Ashbury area you toured – another world. You’re wise as the hop on and off bus seems the best way to get the basic lay of the land in any city. I agree that audio can be a problem – have experienced issues as well. If you take the Alcatraz tour, you’ll pass by Aquatic Park and The South End Rowing Club where I used to row early in the morning when the Bay was quiet. Views of the GGB and city looking back from the Bay are amazing! Aquatic Park used to be the resting place for the Balclutha, known as Star of Alaska, Pacific Queen, or Sailing Ship Balclutha, a steel-hulled full-rigged ship built in 1886. It may still be there?

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    • I’m finally catching up with replying to blog comments as you’ll note. We didn’t mind the weather too much as we had checked it serveral times in Australia and knew it would be cool so dressed accordingly. We’d also heard of the famous SF fog. It was in full swing the morning we went to Alcatraz so we saw nothing from the transfer ferry. But we took our time on the island – many hours as they have opened another section and the gulls were nesting around that area particularly. Great to see them up close and the cormorants at a distance. We didn’t get into Upper Haight but we did see some very glamorous houses on that walking tour, so either we got to the edge of it, or the gentrification is working its way down. Ditto for the Balclutha, we never spotted that. Another area I wanted explore was Castro. We often saw the trolley bus from Fishermans Wharf with that destination, but just didn’t have time, especially once our other friends joined us for the second part of the week. At one stage I had intended just to ride the public buses on a number of routes but that didn’t come to pass either. The city layout does lend itself to that plan!

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      • The Castro isn’t that spectacular. After AIDS hit SF things seem to change. Lots of shops and bars…. Parts of the Mission are quite dangerous and Potrero is all about the views and it’s great microclimate but it’s bordered by housing projects which are scheduled to come down. I miss the diversity as Oregon is so vanilla… North Beach is a great place for fantastic Italian food!

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        • Oh good to know! Originally I had been looking at a hotel in Castro. A young gay friend of mine used to live there (post AIDS). We saw quite a bit of projects in our travels. And the Victorians which had been stripped and plastered in the 80s. Both probably seemed a good idea at the time.

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          • I had a Victorian on Potrero Hill – facade was nice but painting very expensive and wood frame buildings in the fog and winter rain need frequent maintenance. Castro may be very different now – remembering the Harvey Milk days. The gay community always active in SF – Castro and Polk Street were the most popular areas. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were always out and about and tasteful drag queen Sylvester and the original Two Tons O’ Fun performed often on Castro – can still hear It’s Raining Men and You Make Me Feel – it was fun!! 🙂

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