Lombard St., Painted Ladies, & Golden Gate Bridge

I have to start this post off with a disclaimer that this is an extremely picture heavy post. I tried to narrow it down, but there were too many good ones! And trust me, I have about 3 times more photos from each day of vacation than what actually makes it on here!

On our last full day in San Francisco, we went to 3 tourist stops we didn’t get a chance to get to yet in the city. Oddly enough this was our first day of the trip that we stayed in San Francisco the whole day! When we first arrived it was already late afternoon so I don’t count that. Then every day after that we were either on a day trip or somewhere else close by for part of the day like Alcatraz or Sausalito. I guess Alcatraz counts as part of San Francisco, but I’m talking about being in the actual city.

Anyway, we got up early on Sunday morning to go on a cable car ride. You need to go on at least 1 ride while you’re in town! We decided to go early so that we wouldn’t have to wait in a long line. At certain times of the day the line up for the cable cars can be over an hour long. We got in line before 7:30am at one of the starting/end points on Powell St. We wanted to take the Powell/Hyde car so that we could get off at Lombard Street aka the Crookedest Street. Getting to the cable car line that early paid off because we waited maybe a max of 10 minutes and that includes waiting for the cars to come and also for the correct car.

We got off at the top of the crooked part of Lombard Street which is a gorgeous curved street lined with beautiful homes. I feel bad for the people that live there because it’s such a tourist attraction! But they do get to live on a beautiful street. We looked up one of the houses on Zillow and it’s $6 million! We took our time taking lots of photos from the different sides of the crooked street. The street is lined on both sides with stairs so you don’t have to walk in the middle of the road when cars are trying to go down. We actually saw a sign that said that thru traffic wasn’t allowed down the street on any day between the hours of 8am-5pm or something like that, but we did see quite a few cars. I remember driving down the street with my family when I visited 20 years ago so the restrictions might be fairly new. Apparently people don’t follow the rules though.

I also took some photos of my outfit on the street and it was a coooold morning. I took off my zip up sweater and braved the 50 something degree temps to take photos of my striped tee (outfit post coming tomorrow!) until I got a few to choose from where my eyes weren’t closed and my mom said my lips looked like they were turning blue. We walked down the crooked part and then back up. Then continued on Lombard street uphill and then downhill to get breakfast.

After finding a small local breakfast place and eating a delicious meal, we took a Lyft to the Painted Ladies otherwise known as those houses in the opening credits of Full House. I remember when I saw them in person years ago the park across the street looked bigger, the hill looked bigger/higher, and the houses looked better. My experience this time could be a combination of being older and the houses looking like they’ve seen better days. But, still I’m glad I went to see them. Fun fact: I learned from one of the Gray Line tour guides that any Queen Anne Victorian House that is painted at least 3 colors is considered a Painted Lady.

On the 1-2 mile walk back to the hotel we passed a farmers market and had a quick browse at the offerings. I also saw some cool buildings like this colorful one!

After getting back to the hotel we were feeling pretty accomplished so far for it being not even 11am. We rode the cable car, did Lombard St., ate breakfast, saw the Painted Ladies. So we regrouped, I got another sweater because I was cold and our next stop was the Golden Gate Bridge and I figured it would be even cooler by the water.

We took another Lyft to the Golden Gate Bridge and took a ton of photos. The bridge was covered in fog, but it still looked cool and the fog actually lifted, shifted, came back, etc. during the time we were there. We started off at the Welcome Center where I bought a photo book told from the perspective of Karl (the name of the fog). Then, we walked halfway across the bridge which was really cool. The fog didn’t bother me, I thought it gave a more moody look to my photos plus if you remember I mentioned in my post the other day that 50% of the water that the redwoods get is from fog so I’m all for it. After we turned around and walked back we followed the signs to go to Fort Point which is a path that brings you down to below the bridge so we could get more photos.

After spending a good amount of time at the bridge we headed back in to the main part of the city (with a very interesting Lyft driver) and had a snack and coffee break at the Ferry Building. My cousins took an Uber back to the hotel, but my parents and I decided to walk back because the weather was really nice. I wanted to stop in Union Square and see if the Williams Sonoma flagship store was open since I peeked in the window after closing a few nights prior and wanted to go in so bad. It was open and it was everything. 4 floors, beautiful, home goals, kitchen goals, furniture. Everything! I saw a really cool travertine cube coffee table that I’d love if I had $3,000 to spare on a table.

After stopping in a few more shops, we got back to the hotel with enough time to relax for a little bit before heading back out to dinner. We had one of the best meals for dinner that last night which I will tell you all about in a post this weekend! But I did want to share the photo of outside the restaurant. All the piers are numbered, for example, a bunch of restaurants in Fisherman’s Wharf are at Pier 39, the Ferry Building is Pier 1 and so on. The restaurant we went to is right next to The Ferry Building, it’s actually attached but not connected, and the address is Pier 1 1/2. It reminded me of Harry Potter so I had to take a photo!

While waiting for our reservation time, we walked down the pier behind the restaurant and I got some more photos of the Bay Bridge. People were actually on the pier fishing! I missed the sunset by the time we were done with dinner, but that’s ok because I don’t think the water behind the restaurant would be facing the sunset. I did take a few photos of the city lights while we waited for our ride back to the hotel. The palm trees reminded me that I was in California even though the San Francisco weather is not what you typically think of when you think California!

That wraps up my last day in San Francisco! We left early the next morning for the airport.

I hope you enjoyed my travel recap posts! I still have some outfit posts to share and my food post so more California is coming your way. Plus, I have so many good photos that I didn’t get to share that I’m sure will make it in to some #fbf post Fridays in the future.

Thanks for following along!