Day 15 – Drive to San Francisco

We woke up in Bakersfield with a 4 hour drive ahead of us to reach San Francisco. We wanted to arrive quite early so that we could visit the Golden Gate Bridge and so it wouldn’t feel too much of a travel day.

We had a really good journey and reached San Francisco just after lunch time. We parked up at the Golden Gate Bridge Visitor Centre and went for a walk. It was quite misty and having spent the last couple of weeks in the heat of Utah and Arizona, it was cold! We really enjoyed the Visitor Centre and reading about the history of the bridge – although Izzy seemed rather disappointed that the bridge wasn’t golden!

We then made our way to our AirBnb in Oakland via a supermarket stop to stock up for the next few days!

Day 16 – Alcatraz, Pier 39 and Lombard Street

Alcatraz Tour

We had tickets booked for an Alcatraz tour at 9am. We had know idea how bad the traffic would be to drive into San Francisco in the morning. We gave ourselves an hour and a half to drive what should have been a 40 minute journey – we almost didn’t make it!

It was a very good tour – the boat trip was great as we had views of the San Francisco Skyline and visiting the prison was really interesting – Tom & Izzy also enjoyed it.

^{Arriving at Alcatraz}

^{On Alcatraz Island}

Pier 39

After our tour we headed to Pier 39 for some food and to see the sealions. We ate at Bubba Gumps and had a window table so we watched the pelicans flying across the harbour. Tom & Izzy found a crepe shop for pudding and Izzy also went on the merry-go round. The sealions were my favourite part of the pier – I could have watched them all day and they were so noisy!

Cable Cars and Lombard Street

We then walked into the city and took a cable car to Lombard Street. We didn’t enjoy the cable car experience – we queued for over an hour to ride one and then the driver was so grumpy.

It was nice to walk down Lombard Street but again it definitely was not a highlight of the day.

^{San Francisco cable cars}

Day 17 – Rodeo Beach & Muir Woods

We were keen not to spend another day in the city so headed north to Rodeo Beach. The beach was quiet and we had to cross a bridge to reach it.

Tom & Izzy played in the sand – the sea was too rough to paddle in, whist Stu & I tried to take photos of the pelicans flying over head.

^{Rodeo Beach}

We carried on north to Muir beach which again had a huge bridge to cross. Tom & Izzy spent some time playing on the rocks before we made our way to Muir Woods to see the redwood trees.

^{Muir Beach}

At Muir Woods we did one of the hiking trails. We really enjoyed it and Stu & I tried to take artistic pictures of the sun shining through the trees.

^{Hiking through Muir Woods}

Day 18 – Napa Valley

For our last day in San Francisco we knew we did not want to go back into the city. We decided to drive to Napa Valley and on route I googled vineyards that were kiddy friendly. The first two I discovered were Stirling Vineyard and Castello di Amorosa.

We visited Sterling Vineyards first and it was really cool as you took a cable car up to the vineyard which obviously Tom & Izzy loved.

^{Cable car ride to Stirling Vineyards}

We took a tour around the facilities to see how the wine was made, tried some samples (not many for Stu as he was driving!) and admired the views from the balcony. We were also allowed to keep our glasses.

We then noticed that we were not far from a petrified forest so decided to pay it a visit. It was a park with a walking trail through some redwood trees which were petrified by a volcano over 3 million years ago. It was a nice stop for a quick lunch break but I don’t think we would return.

Finally we made our way to Castello di Amorosa which was a vineyard and castle. We explored the grounds and did a winetasting – it was really nice as Tom & Izzy were able to taste grape juice so felt part of the experience. They also had chickens roaming the grounds which made it very kiddie friendly.

^{Castello di Amorosa}

^{Wine tasting at Castello di Amorosa}

As we drove home we passed the Napa Valley sign so we had to stop and take photos and also locate the geocache that was hidden there.

We needed to get home as the next morning we were driving the Big Sur and making our way to Santa Barbara. We enjoyed our time in San Francisco (especially Alcatraz and Napa Valley) but it is somewhere I said that I didn’t think I would want to return to.