Public Transportation as a Tourist Destination

Greetings from San Bruno! We're now at the beginning of day three in the area.

We're staying out in San Bruno, south of San Francisco and right next to the airport because ... well, because it's cheap. Not just cheap, though, as I ran through several reviews of places out here that basically said "No, god no, don't consider staying there". We're at the Super 8, and this had decent reviews and I usually have decent luck with Super 8 (rahter than another chain in the same family -- Travellodge -- which I've always thought sucked).

Anyway, by staying here and using some of the extra money to rent a car, we're well positioned for the next couple of days when we go to Napa Valley and then to Monterey (two separate days).

But, the other reason to stay where we are is that it's pretty close to a BART station, and taking the train into the city is the way to go (much as it is in Chicago).

By the way, BART rocks. The trains are comfortable, with wide bodies and upholstered seats, fast to get into the city, and relatively clean (surprisingly so for public transport that has been around for a number of years.

And, BART dumps us downtown directly next to .. the cable car turnaround. The cable car is not really necesarily comfortable, but it is pretty cool to ride, and we've been doing it every day in each direction, because it's also the most convenient way to get from downtown to Fisherman's Wharf, where we've done most of the stuff.

Monday, after the flight, we went to Fisherman's Wharf and I showed Ellen a few of the places there that I'd been to before. We explored Pier ?? (must be 45 or 47, I forget), which is more what I consider old-school fisherman's wharf, crowded with restaurants with outdoor crab-stands. Then we walked up toward the old Del Monte Cannery and Ghirardelli Square, both converted into collections of little shops and restaurants. We walked back toward where we started, ate dinner at Nick's Lighhouse, strolled a bit more, then took the cable car and BART back.

Yesterday was our tour of Alcatraz, which was kind of cool -- worth spending the time (about three hours). Then we walked toward Pier 39, which is the yuppified Fisherman's Wharf. :-) We did some shopping, ate aquick lunch from a stand there (fish and chips for me, BBQ salmon sandwich for Ellen), then walked back along Fisherman's Wharf to the west-most cable car turn-around (nearer Ghirardelli Square), and rode that to Lombard Street (the world's crookedest street, though it's really the second crookedest in the city -- it just gets all the press). There I introduced Ellen to the reality of San Francisco hills. :-) We walked down Lombard Street and took some pictures, then continued down the hill to pick up the cable car on the other line. Which meant we walked down the next street, which I guess was deemed not-quite-steep-enough-to-make-croooked. It's pretty damn steep, though, so Ellen had to pick her way down the hill carefully.

Then we headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before going to the ball game, which I'll talk about in a later post.

You can read Ellen's side of all this in her blog.

And that's it for now. More later.