Last few days in San Francisco

Painted Ladies

During my stay in Palo Alto I took three trips into the city of San Francisco. The first trip was the Embarcadero and Nob Hill exploration, second trip was the bike rental and downtown walk, on the third trip I decided I was going to walk right across the city from the Caltrain station to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It ended up being a 14 kilometre city hike with a number of pretty steep climbs, being San Francisco.  I have provided the route below as well as the climb profile, which is pretty unreal considering I am walking in a city not a mountain!

From the Caltrain station I head up Brannen Street past South Market, here I stumbled upon an REI store which is the equivalent of the Canadian MEC – no seriously this store is like a mirror image of MEC!  I was actually amazed at how similar the REI was to MEC, and now I have learned the MEC was modelled on the REI stores.  From here I stumbled upon a food truck market called the SOMA Streat Food Market which was buzzing with locals getting their Friday lunch.

I started to ascend up now passing by the famous Painted Ladies houses by Alamo Square Park featured in the opening scene of Full House.  I then walked the narrow stripped Panhandle park which heads west towards Golden Gate Park.  I would have loved to explore the Golden Gate Park, but time did not allow for a through exploration, it’s actually huge!   I head up to walk the grounds of the University of San Francisco spending time to admire the lovely Saint Ignatius Church.  The University of San Francisco sits quite high up in the city so I started to get awesome views all around the city, what a great spot to go to school!

From here I continued north to the Presidio of San Francisco which is a former military base, now National Park.  The park connects to the Golden Gate Bridge landing site.  This park is also huge and I was only able to skirt the edge of the space not allowing for a full exploration.  I head down to the amazing Palace of Fine Arts originally constructed in 1915.  It is so amazing to have this iconic piece of history right in the middle of the city.  Since it was clear today I also had an opportunity to get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island in the distance.

I had walked 14 km over a number of steel hills, so I opted to take a cab back to the Caltrain station.  It was an amazing visit to San Francisco and surrounding area.  Thanks to my bro and family for hosting, hope to return soon.