Are you going to San Francisco? (Yes)
So, most of the US Government is shut. Obviously some functions are being kept going, except it seems for the really essential ones, such as KEEPING THE NATIONAL PARKS OPEN FOR NICE UK TOURISTS WHO'VE PLANNED THEIR VISITS TO ALCATRAZ, YOSEMITE AND ESPECIALLY THE GRAND CANYON FOR MONTHS. First they decide to elect a new Pope just before we go to Rome, thereby depriving me of seeing the Sistene Chapel, and now this. Screw you, Tea Party nutjobs. Screw you, world in general.
Still, at least I've been able to see San Francisco for the first time, which is possibly the least practical city on earth. Sure, those pioneer guys who first set eyes on the beautiful Bay Area must have thought they were quids in, but they failed dismally to consider how the 20th century population expansion and the invention of the motor car might work vis a vis the massive sodding hills surrounding the bay.
I doubt Top Gear's budget stretches to converting entire cities into racetracks, but San Francisco (only a charlatan or tourist would dare to abbreviate it to San Fran or Frisco) minus the traffic would be a Clarksonian wet dream. You can imagine him recreating those car chases from Bullitt, bunnyhopping down the near-vertical hills. And if he were in charge, all drivers would have to negotiate the vertiginous stack of hairpin bends in Lombard Street, aka the crookedest street in the world (TM), at a minimum 30mph with handbrake turns being mandatory - anyone failing to do so being instantly banned for not being sufficiently heterosexual.
Lombard Street is a cute little tourist magnet - almost too cute in fact. Maybe I was wrong about the San Fran city planners. Rather than, I dunno, say just deciding that this particular hill was a bit too steep to put a road on, they came up with a thoroughly ridiculous solution which surely had 21st century Japanese iPad-toting tourists in mind.
Their other great solution to the steepness issue was cable cars - which boast conductors taken from a wide spectrum of ethnicities, all of whom are equally capable of both mastering the fiendishly complicated-looking but probably very straightforward series of control levers and at SHOUTING at unsuspecting visitors who fail to move down the car or give the correct monies within the first milliseconds of being asked. As such, the often knife-edge clash between fear and exhilaration that is a cable car ride comes not so much from the gradient but more due to how "interactive" the conductor is feeling that day.
The cable cars only run either between the tourist magnet Fisherman's Wharf district and the main downtown shops, or East-West along one route, and although buses are frequent and cover most of the city, we were always potentially facing at least one near-vertical block's walk between bus stop and hotel, and it was often pot luck as to whether this was a downhill breeze or an uphill struggle.
Interestingly, it was only on our last day that we managed to see other walkers going in the same direction as us as we were undertaking an ascent (they were also English, naturally), which suggests there is a secret way of avoiding the uphills to which only locals are privy. Still, all those undulations imbue the city with a certain character, which not even the alarmingly high numbers of assorted bums and homeless people can ruin. Or they add to it, if lots of random SHOUTING is your thing. (The first time we left the hotel after checking in, we walked past an argument featuring a dropped C-bomb, which set a tone of sorts.)
Anyway, Fisherman's Wharf is fun as touristy areas go, with Pier 39 knocking your English likes of Blackpool Piers into a cocked novelty boob hat. Not least because it boasts a secret weapon of sea lions, which congregate next to its end and thereby have been providing endless hours of free entertainment for many years. We walked from here all the way up to the Golden Gate Bridge, whose iconic status is well-documented and well-deserved. (Although apparently the red paint was meant to be just the undercoat, but everyone complained when they tried to put a grey top coat on for obvious reasons, so red it stayed. Those Bay Area residents sure know a thing or two about marketing.)
The area around the bridge is in the process of being landscaped and developed into parkland, but there's already several square miles of Golden Gate Park to satisfy lovers of green spaces. I'd recommend getting a bus to the westernmost coastal beaches and then walking through the park and down Haight Avenue, which boasts more hippie/alternative/countercultural nonsense than you can shake a joss-stick at.
To briefly cover the rest of our trip so far:
Still, at least I've been able to see San Francisco for the first time, which is possibly the least practical city on earth. Sure, those pioneer guys who first set eyes on the beautiful Bay Area must have thought they were quids in, but they failed dismally to consider how the 20th century population expansion and the invention of the motor car might work vis a vis the massive sodding hills surrounding the bay.
I doubt Top Gear's budget stretches to converting entire cities into racetracks, but San Francisco (only a charlatan or tourist would dare to abbreviate it to San Fran or Frisco) minus the traffic would be a Clarksonian wet dream. You can imagine him recreating those car chases from Bullitt, bunnyhopping down the near-vertical hills. And if he were in charge, all drivers would have to negotiate the vertiginous stack of hairpin bends in Lombard Street, aka the crookedest street in the world (TM), at a minimum 30mph with handbrake turns being mandatory - anyone failing to do so being instantly banned for not being sufficiently heterosexual.
Lombard Street is a cute little tourist magnet - almost too cute in fact. Maybe I was wrong about the San Fran city planners. Rather than, I dunno, say just deciding that this particular hill was a bit too steep to put a road on, they came up with a thoroughly ridiculous solution which surely had 21st century Japanese iPad-toting tourists in mind.
Their other great solution to the steepness issue was cable cars - which boast conductors taken from a wide spectrum of ethnicities, all of whom are equally capable of both mastering the fiendishly complicated-looking but probably very straightforward series of control levers and at SHOUTING at unsuspecting visitors who fail to move down the car or give the correct monies within the first milliseconds of being asked. As such, the often knife-edge clash between fear and exhilaration that is a cable car ride comes not so much from the gradient but more due to how "interactive" the conductor is feeling that day.
The cable cars only run either between the tourist magnet Fisherman's Wharf district and the main downtown shops, or East-West along one route, and although buses are frequent and cover most of the city, we were always potentially facing at least one near-vertical block's walk between bus stop and hotel, and it was often pot luck as to whether this was a downhill breeze or an uphill struggle.
Interestingly, it was only on our last day that we managed to see other walkers going in the same direction as us as we were undertaking an ascent (they were also English, naturally), which suggests there is a secret way of avoiding the uphills to which only locals are privy. Still, all those undulations imbue the city with a certain character, which not even the alarmingly high numbers of assorted bums and homeless people can ruin. Or they add to it, if lots of random SHOUTING is your thing. (The first time we left the hotel after checking in, we walked past an argument featuring a dropped C-bomb, which set a tone of sorts.)
Anyway, Fisherman's Wharf is fun as touristy areas go, with Pier 39 knocking your English likes of Blackpool Piers into a cocked novelty boob hat. Not least because it boasts a secret weapon of sea lions, which congregate next to its end and thereby have been providing endless hours of free entertainment for many years. We walked from here all the way up to the Golden Gate Bridge, whose iconic status is well-documented and well-deserved. (Although apparently the red paint was meant to be just the undercoat, but everyone complained when they tried to put a grey top coat on for obvious reasons, so red it stayed. Those Bay Area residents sure know a thing or two about marketing.)
The area around the bridge is in the process of being landscaped and developed into parkland, but there's already several square miles of Golden Gate Park to satisfy lovers of green spaces. I'd recommend getting a bus to the westernmost coastal beaches and then walking through the park and down Haight Avenue, which boasts more hippie/alternative/countercultural nonsense than you can shake a joss-stick at.
To briefly cover the rest of our trip so far:
- Dotties is a great place for breakfast, as long as you're prepared to get up as stupidly early as we do (I'd love to say it's down to jetlag, but old age is really to blame.)
- I'd also recommend a wine tour. We used Best Bay Area Tours to visit three interesting wineries in Sonoma as well as a stop-off in the beautiful town of Sauscalito on the other side of the Golden Gate, but other operators are available and probably all good in their own ways. We didn't go to Napa, although by the sound of it Napa is Sonoma's slightly cocky cousin whose beverages aren't necessarily that much better but are a lot more costly on the wallet.)
- Go for cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory on Union Square. And seriously, just go for cheesecake. They are amazing but are served in such enormo-breeze block portions that you don't need to eat anything else that day.
- I'm sure Alcatraz is great too, but did I mention that we weren't allowed to go there? FFS.
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| Sonoma winery driveway, plus pumpkins |
We should now be in Yosemite, which of course is still closed too. We ended up going to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom instead though, at what must be the best time of year for it - the weather was great but the park still wasn't crowded with no waiting for more than 5 minutes for any ride, even the insane Superman Ultimate Flight. So don't feel too sorry for us. Actually don't feel sorry for us at all. It's California, it's sunny, it's all good. Now please can you open the Grand Canyon for us? Thanks.
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