I’ve just found out we’re off to San Francisco at the end of April (husband’s got a conference, me and the littl’un are hitching a ride). We’ll arrive on the Saturday afternoon, himself will be holed up managing a portfolio or some such dealy all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then we’ll fly home (to London) Saturday afternoon.
So - what should we do? what should we see? what shouldn’t we miss? There will be the two of us adults, plus my daughter who is 16 months old, walking and very active. She loves animals of all descriptions and swimming and is mostly superbly well behaved and charming. (We took her travelling around Canada last Summer and she coped beautifully, had a whale of a time and made hundreds of friends human and animal).
I’m really open to suggestions. I love walking around new cities, so I’m planning just to wander for a while, probably on one of the days it’s just me and the baby. Are there any places I should make sure to go and/or avoid? We can hire a car and get out of the city a ways if anyone thinks that’s a good idea. We love food, wine, nature type stuff, not big fans of noise and theme park type things. We will be limited in some ways by the baby’s presence - can’t do fancy restaurants at night or anything like that - and my husband the Australian, bless him, can’t be doing with big crowds of people.
I’m really excited - an unexpected trip! Suggestions, good dopers please!
Well, there’s certainly a lot to see and do in San Francisco. One place that I always take out of town guests is Twin Peaks. It’s a small “mountain” in the center of the city. On a clear day, you can see downtown SF, Oakland, the Golden Gate Bridge. the Pacific Ocean, Alcatraz and beyond. It’s always a big hit. It does require a car or an arranged bus tour.
Chinatown is also a feast for the senses. It’s another place that I truly love.
Also, San Francisco has a zoo, which your daughter may enjoy. You can get there quite easily on MUNI (the underground). Just go to a station on get on the outbound L line and it’ll take you there.
It’s been too long since I’ve been to San Francisco. I’ll second China Town. Also, Alcatraz is worth the money for the ferrry ride and tour. A trip (boat ride) to Sausalito and it’s artsy shops and restaurants is worth an afternoon as well. If you have a full day and a rental car I suggest a drive on down the coast to Monterey, “the 16 mile drive” and Carmel. Gorgeous scenery. Fisherman’s Wharf is touristy but worth a visit.
Get a week long Muni pass (or whatever they call it) that allows unlimited Muni and Cablecar rides. It’s a great value and opens up much more of the city. Walking is nice, but most of SF is as hilly as you see on TV and will be a bit much for a 16 month old.
You are going to have a blast! BTW, where are you staying?
Rent a car for a day (or more) and visit nearby nature spots in Marin County on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, like the following:
The Marin Headlands Marin Headlands - Golden Gate National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service), including Rodeo Beach, and the Marine Mammal Center, where they rehabilitate injured wildlife. Wildflowers will be past their peak, but docents at the Rodeo Beach visitor center would probably know where there are some within your kid’s walking distance. Go to the website to see if there are any appropriate guided walks scheduled.
Drive to the top of Mt. Tamalpais for the views.
Visit Muir Woods.
Or cross the Bay Bridge and drive above Berkeley along Skyline Drive for more fantastic views.
Monterey is definitely worth visiting, and you can see many things there, including the Aquarium. The coast drive is beautiful. But it’s at least 4 hours round trip, and that time might be better spent nearby. Your call.
Muir Woods is a fairly easy drive to see the big trees. Point Reyes National Seashore is also gorgeous.
Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, is very famous, but not very stuffy. You can get a nice lunch in the upstairs cafe and it might not be too crowded on a weekday.
Chinatown is going to be crowded any time, though.
If you love to sew, you can’t miss Britex. It’s a fabric store with 4 or 5 floors, each devoted to a different fabric. You can get woolens from the British Isles, silks from the Far East and all sorts of one-of-a-kind fabrics from around the world. I used to go and buy 1 to 2 yards of an offbeat patterned silk to make scarves with. Hope this helps.
Thanks for all this - I’m going to print this out and make a proper itinerary. I think we will get a car for a couple of days and go to Monterey, Murin and Twin Peaks as well as stuff in the city then. Muni pass - check - I should practise collapsing her stroller!
Don’t know where we’re staying - that will be through work so won’t have any choice. Probably some soulless corporate thing with a huge room service menu and gorgeous bathrooms - oh the horror…
Thanks everyone, the excitement is building and I’ve still got 4 weeks to go!
What he said, if the weather is decent. Marin can be rainier than the city in the spring.
The Exploratorium is a hands-on science museum, some of which your daughter might get a kick of, (like the echo tube) but most of which is suited more for 5-12 year olds.
If you plan on wondering around the city, be careful. Some of the nice hotels in the Union Square area are within easy distance of some pretty seedy areas. Head towards Chinatown/North Beach. For a good workout, head up to Coit tower- awesome views, a great WPA mural, and you can take the stairs down, past the “Parrots of Telegraph Hill” area (don’t know if the parrots are still there, though) with the piers below. Don’t know how the panhandler situation in London is, but don’t be put-off, just walk on by. Fisherman’s Wharf and some of the other touristy areas tend not to be as bad as Market.
At 16 months, it sounds like Fairyland will be right up your daughter’s alley (it’s like a big playground and pretty mellow as opposed to carnival-like). Plus, it’s beside beautiful Lake Merritt (a nice 3-mile walk), which has many great places to eat nearby and a stone’s throw from the fun Piedmont district and the Oakland Rose Garden.
But skip the Gilbert & George exhibition. I’m mid-thirties, and I think it warped my mind. I don’t want to imagine what it might do to a 16-month-old. (The tower view at the top of the de Young offers a great view, however).
Coit Tower is also a great view if you don’t mind the claustrophobic ride up the elevator, and you can play “Spot the Commie” on the mural inside. It’s a pretty strenuous hike, though; I don’t know if you want to do it with a stroller. However, a bus line (39?) starting from North Beach goes up to the top. I didn’t see any parrots when I was there a few weeks ago, but there are supposedly several flocks of feral Red-Masked Parakeets (see the book and/or film listed in quotes above). Fisherman’s Wharf is a standard tourist trap area where you should only go to board the boat to Alcatraz and Angel Island, should you do that. (You’ll want to get reservations for that if you plan to go, or show up early. Trust me.)
The weekly Muni pass is a great idea because only someone terminally insane will drive (and especially park) in the city any more than strictly necessary. However, you’ll want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the Muni system, which, despite its convenience, seems conceived to confuse and misdirect the rider as much as humanly possible, essentially a West Coast version of Boston’s MBTA. You probably want to get the 3- or 7-day Passport (which allows you to ride on cable cars and trolleys without extra fees or transfers), not the Weekly Pass, just for the sake of simplicity and also to retain what small amount of sanity you may have left after figuring out where to buy the thing in the first place. Once you’ve managed to cope with it, however, it turns out to be reasonably convenient. I like the Streetwise Map for navigation because it has rail and major bus lines and easily identifiable landmakrs clearly indicated, and also holds up well to use, and you can write on it with erasable marker or wax pencil.
I don’t recommend recreating the chase sequence from Bullitt, but if you are into films there are plenty of backdrops to classic movies that still exist in some form, unlike, say, Los Angeles, where attempting to do the Heat scenic tour reveals that about 62.4% of Los Angeles has been demolished and replaced in the last decade.
Enjoy; it’s one of the best cities in the United States to tour around in.
If you do go to Oakland and the Lake Merritt area, it has a smaller, less intimidating Chinatown, with restaurants and bakeries. If you do walk around the lake, wave to our old apartment. It will be to the south.
Given the drivers and the fluctuating shedule, a week on the MUNI just might make you insane. But far less insane than trying to drive and navigate thru most of SF proper. Not to mention parking. I’m reminded of an old BART ad featuring Henny Youngman. “I saw a man laying in the street, so I asked if I could help. He said to call his wife and tell her to buy a car, because he’d found a parking spot.” The MUNI metro lines (subways thru downtown, streetcars elsewhere) will overlap with BART lines along Market. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) will take you to Berkeley and Oakland. You’ll have to go under the bay for about ten minutes. If that freaks you out, there are nice ferries with bars and cafes onboard.
I would imagine that there’s a website or book that shows famous movie shots, if that’s your thing. There are also many self-guided and docent guided walking tours all over downtown. Check out the SF Chronicle’s Bay Area Traveler page for details.
I don’t think it’ll be too bad for 16 month old. I was there with a 15 month old, and she was more about walking up to strangers and trying to climb on the benches than paying attention to the pictures of poo and penises. But whether or not it warps the baby, that exhibition really is less about art and more about disruption.
You should know that there are a lot of little neighborhood parks with playgrounds that should while away the hours with a little kid. There are also books like this, about what to do in SF with kids (I actually like this one because it’s a series of cards, so you don’t have to cart around a whole guide book).
If you’re there on a weekend and there’s good weather, Golden Gate Park is great. There’s a section where they do swing dancing, and lots of kids are out and about playing. A good place to walk around. I’ve also heard good things about these guys, who lead walking tours. It’s something that I wanted to do but never got myself organized enough to do.
