16th July - San Francisco

Today was a day of walking.

Scratch that... today was a day of HILLS!! Surprising as we're in San Francisco!!

Started out with a leisurely start and then wandered down to SoMa (South of Market Street) to the Cartoon Art Museum. A fascinating place. The current exhibitions were of the Art of Sleeping Beauty and Watchmen - a fascinating insight into the processes behind comic/animated feature creation. Also, fantastic to see some of the original art work from Sleeping Beauty.

We then headed into the Financial District to see the Transamerica building (better seen from a distance, it's a great architectural design but doesn't look all that pretty up close... lots of concrete) and then went up a big hill to visit the Cable Car Museum where you can see the actual workings of the cables and read about the history of the lines and cars, including how the cable car system was nearly permanently lost and replaced with diesel busses. The lines that remain were saved by the lobbying of a community campaign group set up to save the cable cars. Interesting stuff.

I picked up a lovely cable car charm for my charm bracelet.

We then carried on up the big hill (Russian Hill, through the neighborhood of Nob Hill) to Lafayette Park where we saw a flock of parrots (too high up in the trees to photograph) and hummingbirds. Yes, Hummingbirds!! I did manage to get a photo, will have to do some editing to make it a bit more visible! They are fantastic birds, this one was a beautiful green. They move so quickly. Definitely an experience of a lifetime.

After Lafayette Park we headed south to Alamo Square to see the Painted Ladies (painted housed looking like doll house fronts) and then headed back to the hotel past the Opera house.

I'm currently allowing my legs to recover from the hike around the city and might head out to see Harry Potter a bit later.

Tomorrow is a day for investigating the Fisherman's wharf and a trip to Alcatraz!

Photos