San Francisco-Day 2- July 11, 2010

Sunday was a really full day.  We grabbed the Trolley Car and began our adventure.  Linda had booked a walking tour of eating/food places in San Francisco. 

We began at this really cool little park.  There were all sorts of people doing morning exercises, yoga and just hanging out.  There was a photography artist selling his photos...which were unbelievable.   

One of our stops was at a Chocolate Truffle shop.  Can I just say, that I thought I had gone to heaven right there.  This little picture does not do this place justice.  After the tour, we hunted all over so I could buy a box of one of each kind he had.  I almost made it home with the entire box.  A band of thieves broke into our room and stole one or two.  (that is my story and I am sticking to it)

Next was this wonderful church.  We hung around outside to wait for the services to end and got to walk around inside for a bit.  This alter was so beautiful.  I felt funny taking pictures of it, but wanted to capture it in time.  Believe me the photo does not do it justice.

How many of you are old enough to  remember "The Streets of San Francisco"?.  Here is the street that the opening scene was made at.  I kept looking for Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. 

Next was a Bread baking shop.  They took us back to the oven area.  They still use brick ovens.  It was interesting to see how they scooped the bread out with the big paddles.  Then I looked on the floor (cement) and saw a pigeon walking around eating the meal that the baker threw on the floor for him.  Let me tell you how tasty bread was from that point on at any restaurant in SF.

Next we went to the Barbary Coast.

Read the sign...enough said.

There is a restaurant that is fairly famous in San Francisco. The Garlic Rose Restaurant. Their Motto is that they season their GARLIC with Food. We had to try it. Vampires kept their distance from us for the rest of the trip. We started off with Roasted Clove of Garlic and just kept marching thru the Garlic dishes. We even topped off our meal with Garlic Ice Cream. Yes, you read that right...Garlic Ice Cream. Actually, it was good.

China Town was really cool. We went into a Chinese Tea store and got to sample all sorts of teas and learn about the proper way to make, store and drink.  Linda was brave and bought some.  I had visions of being arrested for carrying some sort of drug (pot) in our suitcase.

We took a Gray Line tour of the city.  You really meet some kooks   nice people on these trips.  Below is a perfect example of that.  It was sooooo cold that this group went to a shirt shop and bought Sesame Street Sweat shirts that  they felt were representative of their personalities. 

Let's just say, they were the life of the upper deck of the tour bus.

San Francisco is famous for their "Painted Ladies".  Now if you were like me, you had heard that term and had all sorts of notions of what a "painted lady" is.  Sorry, they are not ladies of the night.

Painted ladies are homes that were built out of kits.  All of them began looking just alike.  Then the owners would shop via their catalogs or door-to-door salesman and buy the lattice work, window sashes or whatever to reflect their personality.  These home run upwards of 1 Million Dollars each.  They come in every color under the sun and some are painted like rainbows.  All of the are 2-3 stories high and have no yard to speak of.  Yet, the tour guide said, they do not stay on the market long, if they go up for sale at all.  Lots of them are passed from generation to generation.