Ok so we are the first to admit that our last post of Portland and Seattle was one of those ‘you had to be there to enjoy it’ kind of situations. Thanks to those who read it. They are nice cities but lets leave it at that and continue onto our next place which was San Francisco. We drove from Portland along the West coast of the US, most of which is the state of California. We were a bit disappointed by the coastline, we were expecting the beaches to be a little nicer (see gallery below) but the sunset was pretty terrific.

Sunset on the road to San Francisco, California.

Another thing we liked along the way to San Francisco was the National Redwood Forest. These trees were so tall and strong. You really needed to get out of the car to appreciate their sheer size though. It’s actually in this forest where Bigfoot lives…. and like all these kind of things someone likes to make a buck or two out of it….

Of course this wasn't the only shop where you can buy Bigfoot paraphernalia

Hopefully this demonstrates how massive these trees are. They are protected now which is good too.

After several hours driving south through California, and sneaking in a visit to a good old County Fair, we reached the entrance to San Francisco. and crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge is quite spectacular and definitely worth either driving or walking across, baring in mind that there is often a very strong icy wind that flows through the heads. Even on a summers day it can be super chilly.

The Gate to the San Francisco. Golden Gate Bridge.

San Francisco, as an area, is not overly massive. You can easily walk around most of the city in a day although the streets are famously steep.  We recommend spending a few days here though as there is plenty to do. It would have to be one of the best cities we had ever visited and we can now see why so many people who live here love it. We’d heard people say that its a lot like Melbourne, which we agree with (minus the 65 degree street inclines) but only all the good parts of Melbourne. We didn’t  see any ordinary parts to this city.

Some of the streets of San Fran seem like cliffs especially driving them in a RV.

We happened to arrive on a Friday and found ourselves a park in what looked like a pretty cool area. It turned out that it was the trendiest place to be – Polk Street, in the heart of the city. As it was friday night and a long weekend we were able to park our RV in this area for the few days while we walked around the city and went out at night. Its was amusing when people asked us where we were staying and we’d point to our mobile home 100 metres away.

Our RV parked (overnights) in Polk St, San Francisco.

Another great place to visit is Fisherman’s Wharf – very touristy but still good fun. The sea lions are still there in big numbers, and there are tours to Alcatraz Island, that leave from there. Book them in advance if you want to go on a particular time or day. Alcatraz was a highlight for both of us, to the point we even bought a book about the place (see more on Alcatraz in the next post).

We both agreed that of all the cities we had been to so far San Francisco was the one we could most likely live in.

(please see more photos below). Press PicLens for a cool way to view our photo gallery:

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