I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Sinatra wasn’t wrong when he crooned those words. Just back from a fantastic weekend in the city by the bay – wow, what a city! Probably one of the most enjoyable weekends in the history of the world, ever. Lorna already wants to move there

It really was great weekend. We arrived late Friday evening after a 3 1/2 hour flight from Houston and took a taxi to our hotel – Beresford on Sutter Street (downtown), which despite the circumstances of our booking turned out to be really nice – the room was compact but clean and tidy.

We decided to head straight out and went for a stroll around Union Square/Market Street in search of a bar and liquid sustenance – we ended up back on Sutter Street and following some local advice headed up to the The Red Room, which strangely enough was very red but kind of cool. There was busy Friday night crowd, but we managed to find a seat and proceeded to get trolleyed – this was mainly down to Lorna not liking either of the first two cocktails she ordered, meaning I was forced to drink them as well as my beer before ordering more cocktails and another beer. Anyway, from what I can remember (very little!) the cocktails were good and reasonably priced. Suffice to say we slept well that night when we finally stumbled back to the hotel in the early hours.

Despite the hangover, we managed to get up relatively early on Saturday morning and decided to take a walk down Market Street to the Farmers Market situated at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. The market offers organic produce from regional farmers and ranchers and is well worth a visit – the sounds, smells and free tastings are brilliant – just pity we weren’t in a position to take advantage of the goods on offer (although I know Lorna would have spent a fortune if it had been in Houston!).

After the market we continued up the Embarcadero toward Fishermans Wharf and then headed off up Telegraph Hill via the Greenwich Steps, which were pretty steep at the bottom and a little bit scary for anyone suffering from vertigo (like me!)- also a good fitness test! The effort was rewarded however when we got to the top with views on all sides of the city, Golden Gate and Alcatraz. We took plenty of pictures here and indeed during the whole weekend, which can be viewed on my flickr account .

From there we headed down into North Beach, the Italian district, and stopped for a coffee in Caffe Trieste – a lovely little family cafe with a band providing musical entertainment.

We then wandered up through Chinatown (Grant Street) and took a break in the park in St.Mary’s Square before trekking up the very steep California Street where one of the cable car/tram lines run. Deciding it was time for lunch we headed down Jones Street for lunch at Dottie’s True Blue Cafe – as the guide book (Lonely Planet) warned there was a queue, but as the guide book also promised it was worth the wait. We only queued for about 20 minutes before being seated and we were treated to a yummy brunch with a neverending supply of coffee and water. It definitely hit the spot.

We had already decided to try and grab a taxi to head over to the Golden Gate Park for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Unfortunately nobody told us that hailing a cab on the street in San Francisco is virtually impossible and we ended up wandering through the very dodgy Tenderloin district – Lorna eventually decided standing on street corners was attracting way too much unwanted attention. We ended up down at the Civic Centre and eventually caught a bus up Haight to the entrance of the park.

After a 40 minute hike (my map reading skills aren’t what they used to be and the park map wasn’t to scale!), we eventually made it to the festival area. There was a huge crowd making the most of the free entry to see some of the biggest names in Bluegrass – lord knows why or how Billy Bragg got invited (I’m guessing something to do with the Woody Guthrie connection – anyway a link to Billy’s blog of the event HERE), but as ever it was well worth it. It was gorgeous weather, a gorgeous setting and Billy didn’t let us down (of course he never does!). It’s so great that having introduced Lorna to him, she loves him as much as I do.

We had a lovely romantic meal on Saturday evening at Plouf – a gorgeous bottle of Chablis, Moules Marinieres and Frites, delicious Fish & Chips (me) and the Bouillabaisse (Lorna). Highly recommended.

Sunday was probably the most fun day I’ve had in yonks (althought to be fair there have been a lot of fun days since I met Lorna). We hired one of these things – absolutely the most fun way to see San Francisco! They have a maximum speed of about 35 mph, are louder than a Ferrari (at least when you’re sat inside) and are so low to the ground you might as well be sat on a skate board! They are ideally suited to the famous hilly streets of SF and also come with in-built GPS tourist guide – we switched it off and went native! Suffice to say we had a whale of a time – the highlight of which was getting a police escort off the Golden Gate Bridge (which is basically a motorway and not suitable for mopeds!). We thought we looked like the protagonists from CHIPS! and elicited lots of attention – but probably we looked like complete dorks in those shiny helmets Make up your own mind from the pics on Flickr.