Long time, no blog, what gives? So I’ve been absentee from the blog for a week mainly because I’ve been distracted by other things but I’m back and with a photos and updates of our trip to San Francisco which we took over the Labour Day weekend. San Francisco is a great city and we had a really nice time as the weather was perfect and we got to see nearly everything we had set out to see. We had two fabulous dinners, one at the excellent Café Claude which was feet from our hotels and came recommended by Time Out magazine and it certainly lived up to its praise. The other meal was at Kuleto’s, recommended by a colleague, and for being located on a street that looked and felt like a tourist trap, this restaurant was anything but a trap – it was lovely Italian food served in a lovely and surprisingly intimate (for a large) restaurant.
As for the title of this post – as you’ll see from the photos (I took about 300 photos so below are a smattering of them), Mike & I stumbled upon Mr. Coppola’s very own restaurant in which we not only enjoyed our late afternoon lunch but were also treated to a unintended sideshow by Mr. Coppola’s family/friend v/associates (we’re still not sure the connection these guys had to the director but it was obviously close) who were without a doubt members of the mafia from New York. Awesome.
All in all, San Francisco is a great weekend visit and an excellent cardio/leg work out. If you’re ever down there, my recommendations would be this: 1) you must have at least 1 meal at Café Claude and 2) avoid the wharf unless you want to see the sea lions or take a tour of the bay – it’s a total tourist trap and could do with a good power wash.
Without further adieu:
Here is Mike inside Francis F. Coppola's restaurant - Mike wanted me to take the mafia godfather's picture but I dare for fear of ending up by in the bay with bricks in my pockets...just joking! I'm sure deep down, he was a very nice man.
After a rather epic trek up one of the many many hills in the city, we were awarded with this lovely view
We took a boat tour of the bay as part of our Expedia package and nearly missed out on seeing the Golden Gate Bridge up close and personal - this is what the bridge initially looked like - a black specter in the fog
but then the captain turned to boat hard starboard and then we got this view
Yay! Its a bridge!...
One of the great things about San Francisco is the amazing architecture and architectural details that you can see pretty everywhere in the city, here's a sampling (and this is only a small sample of all the photos I took of houses):
This sign is a fixed to the fence shown above - I guess this hood was a bit rough during a time when $10 was a serious award
How amazing is this gate?!
Chinatown in San Francisco was very impressive
We also went out the the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, designed in 1915 by Bernard Maybeck - it is a very beautiful park and it is definitely worth making time for.
On our last day there we made our way to the Gaybourhood and it was fabulous! It was very warm that day so we stop in at Orphan Andy's for root beer floats - it had an awesome 50s/60s dinner dive feel and the burgers were the size of a small child!
Also in the hood is the Harvey Milk Plaza
Hopefully sometime soon Prop 8 will be shot to hell (where it belongs) and Mr. Milk's dream for equality will finally be realized.
San Francisco is known for its trolley but perhaps what is less known is that the city is also where vintage trolleys go to find rebirth. Below are two trolleys from the 40s mid-West America and the early 20th century from Milan, Italy. Both were very pretty!
Lastly, I swear this is the end of the deluge of photos - one of the only things worth going to the wharf is the sea lions. They're amazingly huge stinky beasts and here are 3 of about 20 photos I took of them.
All in all, I give San Francisco...
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