Not quite following the lyrics to the Otis Redding song “I left my home in Georgia, Headed for the Frisco Bay,” we came to Frisco from Big Bear, California where we had been pet sitting for two weeks. Our first view of this infamous northern California city was the lights of downtown as our bus crossed the Bay Bridge at night (only to realise later that we would need to go back over the bay to get to our accommodation a few minutes later).
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| Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, USA |
We stayed in a suburb in Alameda, on the Alameda Island south of Oakland and east of San Francisco across the San Francisco Bay. Although you either needed to catch a bus or a take a costly taxi drive to get into the city, we enjoyed staying in this part of the greater Bay area. The suburb had a lovely relaxed pace, with only few chain stores scattered in between the many owner-managed unique shops, restaurants, and pubs.
A good day in this area could involve walking along the lovely Victorian style houses, to get to your favourite restaurant serving up their gourmet interpretation of a burger with craft beers on tap. To finish the day, you catch a film with buttered popcorn at the grandiose Alameda Theatre, originally built in 1932.
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| Quaint Victorian Style houses in Alameda, California |
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| Alameda Theatre, Alameda, California, USA |
But let’s face it, you can’t spend all your time in the burbs because as a first-time visitor to San Francisco there are a couple of city highlights you cannot miss. So since we would only be in the area for a week, we were quick to book our city tour, tour to Muir Woods, Alcatraz cruise and day trip to Yosemite National Park.
A city tour is always an excellent option to begin your stay in any city as it helps orientate you before deciding how the rest of your limited time will be spent. We started in the Fisherman’s Wharf area and went straight to the Golden Gate Bridge. We so enjoyed taking photos here that we were the last to make it back to our bus and almost needed to buy a round of drinks to make up for our tardiness. The rest of the morning, as we upped our pace not to keep anyone waiting again, we got to see all the highlights of the city as well as drive up to Twin Peaks for a lovely view of San Francisco.
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| Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, USA |
That afternoon we headed to the scenic Muir Woods where we will able to see some magnificent giant redwoods and walk around the park. We stopped briefly at Sausalito on our way back, the place that not only inspired but was also where the song “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay” was written.
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| Muir Woods, California, USA |
On another day, after catching a local bus into the city and great old style trams to Pier 33, we cruised to Alcatraz. A great surprise is the view of the golden gate bridge on your way to The Rock. The audio tour of the prison was fascinating and helped us understand what this it was like here when it was still operational and housed some notorious criminals like Al Capone.
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| View of Golden Gate Bridge on the cruise to Alcatraz |
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| Cell in Alcatraz Prison |
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| The Rock (Alcatraz Prison) |
Before our week was done, we did a full day tour to Yosemite National Park – that deserves a whole blog post on its own which we will hopefully write soon. The park was lovely and is probably worth staying overnight, but even if you have to spend six hours in a bus to get there and back, it is a worthwhile visit.
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| Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
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| Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
We could easily have stayed for much longer and absolutely loved everything about our visit to the greater bay area. But as travellers on a mission with more places to visit, we needed to move on and can only leave you with these lyrics:
Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone, listen
Two thousand miles I roam
Just to make this dock my home, now
I'm just gon' sit at the dock of a bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
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