Thursday, 1st of May: San Francisco

Beaming sunshine accompanied us on the highway 101 to San Francisco. Today we are going to see the city of the hippies. San Francisco is different, nevertheless. The bay, the bridges, the deep blue sea: All of this puts you in a special mood. Our first destination was to see the Golden gate bridge, driving straight through the city. This bridge is world-famous –, not because it is so big or because it is so especially nice: It stretches majestically over the water – in a region which is simply wonderful. And no matter, from which side one looks at the bridge: It looks different over and over again. We were surprised that it is not a golden colour really at all, it is red. The red colour, so we found out, is nothing else than primer which is applied over and over again to protect the bridge against humidity and the salty air. Seven years it lasts, until the whole bridge is completely painted – time to begin again from the start an everlasting job of maintenance. So there is allways work on the bridge. Of course it was not enough for us, to see Golden gate only unilaterally – we crossed the bridge and visited different vantage points to enjoy the sight over and over again. In front of us we saw  the skyline of San Francisco, in the bay the prisonisland Alcatraz, a yacht harbour, cleft cliffs, and all that in beaming sunshine. We were overpowered. And then we bumped into a sign alongside the bay that took us by surprise. We where informed with a sign that it’s forbidden here to feed the coyotes. What in the world should this signify? no coyote has run past us along the way in San Francisco and at the Golden gate (only two legged coyote´s).

From the Golden gate we went to harbour quarters. We wanted to visit Fishermen’s Wharf. Searching for a place to park was a little bit difficult, the footpath to our purpose seemed to be endlessly wide. Then Grady had the glorious idea to stop a bicycle ricksha. The small Vietnamese agreed to bring us to the Wharf – all the three of us  in one  ricksha. The poor guy had to thrash about quite a lot, because, as everybody knows, the streets are not quite level in San Francisco, and we three were no light cargo. At Fishermen’s Wharf we saw the famous Cable coaches. After a vast stroll through the streets of the quarter we enjoyed an extensive lunch in the Crab House to enjoy some of the famous crab, before we continued our city tour by car. Not only the modern commercial houses and office houses and hotel arrangements had done it for me – I loved the wonderful Victorian houses in the Old Town. They are simply dreamlike and tell about past times.