San Francisco proved hotter than expected so on day three we started out with shorts and sunscreen as there was a lot of sweating and a little buring happening on day 2. We did the hop on hop off tour offered by opentopsightseeing.com on the double decker bus. This is a great way to check out all the tourist stops and sightseeing hotspots in San Francisco. If you pick up a map from Fishermans Warf there is a coupon for $5 off each person on the tours. We headed out of downtown SF and saw a cool little parkade before arriving at the Civic Center. The Civic Center in SF is amazing, I could have spent a whole day there alone.
Next up was the Golden Gate Bridge. On our first loop around we decided to stay on the bus and drive accross instead of walk. We wanted to drive the whole tour loop first to see where we might want to stop back at. We were sitting about midway back on the top deck enjoying the views from the open top and while this is a great way to see most of the tour it is not the best place to be while driving accross the bridge. It was windy, very windy, hang on to your hat, sunglasses, camera, hair and shorts kind of windy. Think Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in Twister kind of windy. It was aheap of fun though and on pass number two we were smarter and sat up top but this time just behind the windscreen and that was barely breezy.
After driving the bridge and continuing on the tour we made a stop just a few blocks from Coit Tower. We walked the few blocks uphill and climbed all the stairs to reach the entrance where thankfully there was an elevator to take us to the top to take in views of the cities downtown, bridges, and piers.
After making the return trek from Coit Tower, which was all downhill as they say, we stopped for a quick snap of the famous Saints Peter and Paul Church. One of the reasons this church is famous is because Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had pictures taken in front of the church after they got married.
After we were able to relocate the spot we needed to reboard our tour buss we headed off towards Golden Gate Bridge again, this time to walk it. We went past the famous Painted Ladies and I shot the quick snap you see below from the moving tour bus. I also took the lovely self portrait of Angela and I about mid bridge looking back into the bay and overlooking Crissy Field.
Here is a spectacular view of the Golden gate Bridge from the south east side.
I love taking pictures of flying flags and after looking through lots of photos I picked a few to include here. I picked them mainly for the character of each flag and to compare how different each one looked in its respective environment. Everything from majestic to average to downright battered and torn.
All in all we had a fantastic time in San Francisco and to quote a phrase from our tour “I’ll be back…”.