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Vinnie's Trip to San Francisco
I had planned the trip in early 2008 hoping to entice friends of mine to travel there with me but the people I generally travel with could not make it at the time. I did meet up with Libby someone I worked with many years ago. She is a medical technologist and lives about 3 hours northeast of San Francisco. We spent a nice afternoon together and had an early dinner before she had to leave to mind her show dogs. I also got to meet up briefly with my cousin Tony, the network operation manager for a high tech company, whom lives in Marin County and I had not seen in many moons. It was Father's Day and he had previous commitments with his daughter and some of her friends. He drove me around the city and left me in China Town where I had dim sum. I arrived in San Francisco at about 1:30pm on the 13th. I parked my Enterprise rental car at the my motel, Cow Hollow Motor Inn & Suites at 2190 Lombard Street on the north side of the city. I checked in, left of my baggage, and then went walking around. Both Enterprise and Cow Hollow Motor Inn pass out good tourist maps of the city. I walked and I walked. The areas that I covered were Marina, Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, some of Presidio National Park, North Beach, China Town, and Nob Hill. I walked about 1/4 of the city. I obviously could seen more if I was willing to drive my rental car around the city. San Francisco is well laid out with mostly wide streets and many places to park. It is NOT like Boston which is just the opposite. If you can navigate the streets of Boston then San Francisco is not contest at all. What I also noticed is that the people appear to be very friendly. While walking about I would pass men, women both young and old. They were very willing to say hello. I was pleasantly surprised by this. It tells me that San Francisco must be a nice place to live. I did get the impression that San Francisco is a young person's city. It is not hilly. It is mountainous! One must be in good physical condition to be able to walk about this city. Of course, one can drive around; take public transportation; etc; some things that I did not do - I walked. The first afternoon I was there I immediately went to Fisherman's Wharf. I walked from Lombard St. towards Cervantes St, through Fort Mason before arriving at the Wharf. On the way to the Wharf, I did stop at Cannery at Del Monte Square where a musician, John Clarke, was playing a mix of Spanish and his own guitar music. He was simply amazing. I continued onto Fisherman's Wharf. I had an early dinner at Alioto's Restaurant. This place is no tourist trap. The fish sausage appetizer (shrimp and scallop with a basil lemon sauce) and the Cioppino were both very good. The next day Saturday I toured more of the city before meeting up with Libby. She wanted to walk because she had driven three hours to get to meet up with me. We chatted while walking about stumbled into John Clarke and listened for a while before dining at McCormick and Schmick's Seafood Restaurant. This is a chain and was very good. Libby had the Chilean sea bass and I had the sturgeon. On Sunday I met my cousin Tony and we had a great conversation while he drove me around the city. He dropped me off in China Town. I went into a convenience store and asked where I could find a decent dim sum. She pointed across the street to the Imperial Palace on Washington Street. I stuffed myself on everything I could eat. It cost me all of $18 plus a good tip. I was disappointed because there were many more items I could have tried but I did not have room in my stomach. Dim sum is OK by oneself but if you have someone to share it with then you can try more different items. Sunday afternoon I went to a sports bar up the street from where I was staying to watch the Celtics. The Republic is a great place to watch sports. I met someone from southern New Hampshire who knew his basketball. I also met a young woman looking for someone to pay her tab from the night before, as well as, buy her dinner that evening. During our conversation the manager asked her to leave and then he returned to apologize to me. She is well known there. I thought the whole incident quite amusing. Unfortunately, the Celtics lost that game in LA. On Monday, I left San Francisco and went north to Healdsburg which is about one hour north of the city . On the way up I stopped briefly to see Sausalito. I got a few good photos of the harbor. To be honest I had not done my homework on this town and did not find too much of interest. I am sure that I must have missed quite a bit. I got to Healdsburg and stayed at America's Best Value Inn & Suites. It is literally just off the US 101 Central Healdsburg exit. Healdsburg in Sonoma County is one of the major wine areas of California. I planned to stay three days but by the end of the second day I was all wined out and wanted to drink beer. That's right. I had had enough wine. My second night in Healdsburg I had to find another sports bar to watch the Celtics. I came across The Healdsburg Bar and Grill (HBG). There was a good crowd of people watching the game. The bartender was routing for the Lakers and grudgingly congratulated me after the blow-out by the Celtics. A detailed map is available everywhere in Healdsburg showing the locations of all the wineries in the area. If I may exaggerate a bit. In the wine country of northern California they have wineries the way we have Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts. I must say that it is very frustrating when one finds wine that is worth buying but the winery is not allowed to ship directly to residents of Massachusetts. Massachusetts law prohibits the larger wineries from shipping to our residents. I am told that one can by the wine, take it to a shipper, and that some shippers will send it to residents in Massachusetts. The law is there to protect the distributors and, otherwise, makes no sense. The wineries themselves are frustrated knowing that they are losing business because many tourists from Massachusetts visit California wineries every year. Here is a short list of the
Sonoma wineries that I visited and liked.
Many of the wines in the tasting rooms are not available in retail stores. These are small vintages and may only be purchased while at the tasting rooms or if one joins a wine club run by the winery. What I noticed while in San Francisco and driving north to Healdsburg was the number of Jaguar XJs in the area. I had a '96 XJ (purchased used) for a number of years and loved it. In my travels to southern California I don't recall seeing very many. However, in this part of California there seems to be a fair number of them. On Wednesday after two days of too much wine I headed back to the Cow Hollow Motor Inn in San Francisco. I decided to try the Italian section called North Beach. I had lunch at the Trattoria Pinocchio on Columbus Avenue. On Thursday, I went back to Columbus Avenue and after passing by the Pantarei Restaurant on Wednesday I stopped in this time. I found that it was an interesting place to watch the European Cup. There was a distinct European flavor about this place. It is very popular with Europeans who came by to watch the futbol (soccer) matches. My last night in San Francisco I had dinner at Izzy's Steak and Chops Restaurant around the corner from where I was staying. I had the slow roasted prime rib which was very good. The bartenders were busy sampling new wines and freely giving their opinions about them. One of the bartenders loved to travel and in her early forties had traveled to just about everyplace on the planet. She was talking about moving to Argentina in the near future. Later I went back to the Jones sports bar where I met up with a couple of the regulars who were quite friendly. As it turned out, one of them was the roommate of the young woman who had tried to get me to pay for her restaurant tabs a few days before. The next morning I checked out of my room and headed back to San Francisco Airport. It took 55 minutes from when I began driving from the motel to the airport, turned in my rental car, checked in at the airline counter, and went through security. Very quick I must say.
I had a second great trip to San Francisco. I was there for 5 days. I also spent 2 days in Napa (Napa County) and briefly stopped in Muir Woods and took pictures of the forest. I flew in on Thursday 24 June 2010 and left the following Thursday 01 July 2010. This was my second trip to As a bit of an aside on my way to San Francisco (SFO), I
left at 0600 from My favorite restaurant this time
around was The Naked Fish on I went to the
Yet Wah The world cup was being played in During the soccer matches it is more of a bar than a
restaurant. During the I must comment on the ladies of I went north to The town of I met some interesting people while
there. At the soccer bar I spoke with a man (Ronaldo) visiting from List of interesting Napa wineries
Transportation in the City |
San Francisco Redo 2011
This was my third time in the past four years to visit
I also took some time to visit the
Conservatory of Flowers in
I met up again with Paul and Deidra whom I met from my last
trip to
The residents of the
Since I had been to this city before there was not much
that I had not seen. Believe it or though I hadn’t been to the Haight Ashbury
section of
I searched on-line for things to do when I would be in
Healdsburg. I found an oyster and wine pairing at the
Lambert Bridge Winery outside of
Healdsburg. I called and signed up for it.
The Oyster Girls who were sisters
from a “traveling oyster bar” provided the raw and barbequed Miyagi oysters
harvested from
After finishing with the oysters and wine I decided to go into the winery itself. I had been very impressed with one of the chardonnays and was further impressed with the reds that I tasted inside the winery itself. I spent a few dollars on some wines.
While in Healdsburg, I visited both the Selby and Topel wine tasting rooms. Both have very good wines.
I had dinner two nights in Healdsburg, once at the Ravenous and the other at the Boci Café. Both restaurants were very good.
While in Healdsburg, I decided to take a balloon ride. I
chose Up & Away Ballooning for my balloon
ride. We met at the
There were two balloons that would hold up to eight people each. Our balloon had seven passengers plus the balloonist and the other balloon had 5 passengers plus the balloonist. We were asked to volunteer to help set up the balloon which included holding up the ropes while first cool air was blown into the balloon using a big fan with a large wooden propeller and then hot air from burning compressed propane gas.