Hello!!
I am suuuuuper excited to be writing this post about my trip to San Francisco, just a couple of weeks ago.
Some months ago, I wrote a post about 3 places I would like to visit in the USA and San Francisco was among those mentioned so you can imagine how happy I was when we finally were able to plan it, book it and actually be there!
The whole trip was amazing and filled with lovely memories; the type of memories you wish that not even Alzheimer’s will erase!
Due to that, and because I don’t want to write 10 chapters about it, I mean I totally could, but “I’m not sure if anyone would be willing to read them, I thought about making this “trip report” with daily summaries, just mentioning the highlights and some useful information.
Oh, and not to forget, that the posts are complemented with the daily vlogs I made and that are available on YouTube.
I hope you like it!
Enough of babbling and let’s go!!
A week in San Francisco
Day 1 Travel day to San Francisco
This day started with an early train ride to Amsterdam’s airport, Schiphol.
Decided to go with much time in advance, to be on the safe side, because you just never know what can happen with the trains.
Once we got to Schiphol (Amsterdam’s airport), we collected our boarding passes, and since we were traveling with only hand luggage + 1 personal item, we didn’t have to check any bags and went straight to security.
It all went suuuuper smooth, and for my surprise, at Schiphol, you don’t have to take anything from your bags! The staff was so friendly that it made the whole process not just fast but pleasant.
From there, we had some time to kill; looked for a bar to get some drinks and snacks before boarding, but not too much.
After that, I took a nice walk through the terminal; after all, we were going to be sited for at least 11h, and I wanted to get my legs moving as much as possible before that.
The flight was operated by United Airlines, which offered a nice service and the flight departed on time.
Off we were!!
Oh boy, was I excited…
I had packed some fruit and snacks for during the flight, and with 2L of water with me, I was ready to make myself comfortable (read more about my flight essentials on this post).
Infos
From the airport to the city center there’s subway/train (I couldn’t figure out what exactly was), named BART, and you can get single tickets at the machines over there.
In my opinion, those machines aren’t the easiest ones to understand but we could get our single tickets.
Also worth to mention: they don’t give change!!
So we paid $10,- pp/ticket, when the actual ticket was about $9,65 or $9,75, can’t remember.
The journey to the city center takes about 30min.
Vlog on Youtube:
Day 2 Fisherman’s Wharf and the Piers
San Francisco, here we go!!!
The trip has officially started and we were ready to go and explore; our starting point: a cable car trip to Fisherman’s Wharf.
Ohhh I was so excited to be on a San Francisco cable car!
We took the Powell and Mason line; there is also Powell & Hyde cable cars which go to Hyde Park area.
It was just like in the movies; people hanging on the outer side of the cable cars, and obviously many tourists. The ride takes about 20minutes if I remember correctly and then you are just a short walk from Fisherman’s Wharf.
This part of San Francisco soon became one of our favorites; it smells like fish everywhere (smart observation, Barbara…) and many restaurants.
We then took a 1,5h boat ride from bridge to bridge.
Totally recommend it!! We got to see San Francisco from the bay point of view, sailed all the way to the Golden Gate bridge, where things got a bit shaky. From there we went back to the bay, passed Alcatraz (little I knew this would be as close as I’d get… more about it on a future post), and went towards the Bay Bridge.
During the trip we got a nice audio tour, giving us all the juicy details about San Francisco and its history.
Once the tour was over, we got hungry and decided to walk towards Pier 39 to find a place for lunch. Guess what? We found the Hard Rock Cafe.
Well, we had to… hahaha
With full bellies, with was time to go and check out the Sea Lions.
I guess we weren’t the only ones feeling like taking a nap; those lazy Sea Lions were just sleeping like there is no tomorrow…
It was nice, but not a super duper thing, in my opinion.
Perhaps for kids…
So we decided to move on. We looked at the map, and decided (wisely…… not!): “let’s walk to Lombard Street”
Little we knew that to get to Lombard Street we had to climb such a steep hill.
Oh guys… really, that was tough!! But so worth it!!
Oh guys… really, that was tough!! But so worth it!!
Nice to see the curvy street, with so many green bushes and the cars zigzagging through the curves. It was so sunny when we got there, that it was hard to take nice photos of it, and actually, the better view of the street of from down the hill and not from the top, in my opinion.
Infos
A Cable Car ticket costs $7,-, each way. They accept cash but it’s also possible to use public transportation card, named Clipper Card; you can charge this card with whatever amount you wish and then pay as you go.
The tour, from Bridge 2 Bridge, costs $44,- pp.
There were other options, some cheaper, some more expensive, but I think this one is a great tour to do, if you wanna know more and see more of San Francisco without spending too much.
Vlog on Youtube
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Because this post is already quite long, I’ll be saying goodbye for now, but I hope you enjoyed it and be sure to come back to check the upcoming posts about San Francisco.
There are quite some stories to be told, and many photos to be shared. haha
There are quite some stories to be told, and many photos to be shared. haha
See you soon!
