a Preview of San Francisco

My current sunny coffee shop seat is sun warmed and the familiar sounds of steam foaming milk, mugs clinking into their saucers, humming conversation between the silent page turners and highlighters bent over texts. Since this will also be at least a 3-part trip, I had better get caught up... I'm only a month behind! So, today, here's my walk through San Francisco.

The California fire season was especially bad this year. A rager well north of Sacramento left the entire center of the state blanketed in suffocating, orange-tinged smoke.  Thousands have been displaced, an unknown amount of  damage… and a layer of poor air quality that shut down schools as well as the government site I was training at for an afternoon. Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed my day in San Francisco. I didn’t expect to think much of the city; as a Pacific Northwesterner, I have a natural bias against everything south of the Cascades. The general feeling, I think, is that California tends to claim more than its share of "west coast" attention. But from the moment that everyone stood to the right on the escalator coming out of the Metro, I was smitten. The first thing I saw was the newly renovated Ferry Building, and it all went up from there (literally, that was the bottom of the hills). 

A friend whose daughter is a SanFranciscophile texted me a stream of suggestions as I approached the city. I got off BART at the Embarcadero station, and oriented myself towards the water when I spotted the clock tower of the Ferry Building. My first stop was Blue Bottle Coffee in the market stalls… unfortunately, I’d already eaten, or the bakery with its real bread and the next door neighbor’s cheese would have done me in. Both had been recommended in the list of suggestions, I'll have to make another trip to San Fran. This next time, I'll bring my appetite! This morning, revived with a rich cup of coffee, I walked along the “Piers” to Fisherman’s Warf, around Pier 50. 

The familiar smells of a waterfront were homey to me, and a wall of marine fog mixed with forest fire smoke shrouded us from the industrial sights of the bay area. I could have almost been walking along Elliot Bay in Seattle. Machine oil, salt water, low tide… and suddenly, the stink of a mass of marine mammals. Say what you will about how nasty fish are, nothing stinks like sea lions! A raft of them off Pier 49 drew a trickle of tourists. A few leaned on the railing at the far end of the dock, squinting at the haze where water and sky met. A smudge on the sepia-blue boundary was all we could make out of Alcatraz.

 By bus and foot, I made my way out to the must-see sight of San Francisco: the Golden Gate Bridge. Again, what was normally a stunning view was obstructed by fog. On one hand, I only caught glimpses of the north suspension tower. On the other hand… There weren’t many tourists there! A friendly German family took my photo for me, and then I wandered the park until it was time to walk back into the city.

After an hour of wandering San Francisco's northern shoreline, Ghiradeli square was a welcome break and diversion. Its cute shops and warm brick invited me to browse and rest. After that, it was up, up, up Hyde street and a steep drop down Lombard, with its serpentine brickwork. I paused in my descent to watch a land rover navigate the tight corners, which lie almost tangent to each other. I couldn’t decide whether it was a feat of engineering or pure insanity to attempt such a civilization of the steep hill.

 

 I wandered back to my starting point on Columbia street, which lies in a valley climbing steadily up from the water. I gathered quickly that I was in the Italian part of town… had it been later in the day, no doubt the trattorias would have vied with chocolatiers and delis for pedestrians’ attention. My own attention was caught by Reveille Coffee, (another stellar recommendation) and gratified with excellent coffee, a fresh mozzarella-prosciutto sandwich on a real, crusty baguette, with a sidewalk-window access to people watching on a 5-way intersection. It was perfect!

The rest of my trip was an uneventful ride back to the airport and un-delayed flight home. After that introduction, though, I can’t wait for my next excuse to spend a few days in San Francisco. In my opinion, it’s all it’s cracked up to be.