San Francisco

Up and out to explore the city! First stop was a district known as Haight-Ashbury, so named for two streets that run straight through the centre of it. Apparently this area was a real centre of hippie culture in the 1960s, and that's carried through until today. Lots of tie-dyed shirts, vinyl shops and the like, as well as quite a few oddballs hanging around.

Headed up to the 49th Street stairs as well, which is a long pedestrian staircase in a residential neighbourhood. The stair fronts are decorated with mosaics, and when you look at it from the bottom of the stairs it shows up as one large pattern - very impressive.

From here we headed to the Mission District, home to a lot of street art. Very Hispanic area where most signs were in Spanish first and English later. Grabbed a banh mi roll for lunch and then drove through Golden Gate park, the largest park in the USA. Even larger than Central Park in New York! Only looked at the edges though, as we didn't really have time to explore properly.

Drove to Lombard Street where we drove down that narrow wiggly street - apparently the world's steepest. From here we went to the waterfront area around Pier 49 where the sealions are. Schnitzel was quite curious at first but then just wanted to bark, so we retreated from there and had an ice cream looking at the bay. Couldn't see much because of the smoke, but Alcatraz was just visible in the distance. We hadn't looked into it since dogs aren't allowed, but all the trips were cancelled due to smoke anyway.

Back to the car where we headed to our last stop - Baker Beach on the western coast. A dog-friendly spot where you get a nice sunset view of the Golden Gate bridge, so we walked along the beach for a while and let Schnitzel enjoy himself. It's also a nudist beach in some areas and a rather strange old man walked past with everything swinging in the breeze!

It was gathering dark (albeit only 5pm), so we went back to the car and drove back to the Mission District. Found a park and grabbed a burrito at a locally-famous taqueria before heading home, satisfied with our efforts for the day!Read more