Day 21 – San Francisco

This has long been one of my favorite cities. Like New Orleans, San Francisco is large and messy and unique, but it somehow seems smaller than it is. Perhaps it’s the layout, or the fact I’m familiar with it, but we covered so much ground in this first day that it reinforced my view of San Francisco as a big city with a small-city vibe.

I did something interesting for San Francisco which I hadn’t done for any other part of our trip: Before we even left Naples, I had reserved parking spots in the city using an app called Parking Panda. Each day, we had parking reserved at a garage in an extremely convenient location for a fraction of the regular cost. For this day, we had prepaid ten dollars (yes, that’s $10) for parking from 8:30 am until 10 pm for a covered spot only a few blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, and Ghirardelli Square. All I did was enter our car’s make, model, and license plate number when we made the reservation. Upon arrival, we simply took the ticket at the gate, picked a spot, and went on our way.  It was so easy, I actually called Parking Panda’s support number before leaving the garage just to make sure that was really all we needed to do. It was.

From there, we enjoyed all of the aforementioned touristy places. While it’s awesome to explore new places together as a family, it’s also really special to see your kids’ first reactions to sites you’ve already seen. I didn’t spend as much time looking through the lens of a camera, instead getting to point out landmarks to Julian and Chiara, and watching their reactions. Things they’d only seen on-screen dozens of times were now right in front of them. The real Alcatraz. The real Transamerica building. The real Pier 39, seals and all.

For lunch, we hit up Chinatown for a little dim sum (okay, a LOT of dim sum) and sightseeing. To end the day’s tour, we walked to Coit Tower, went up, and got an amazing, perfectly clear view of the city in 360 degrees (see photos, below).

With our legs finally tired, —we’re flatlanders, after all — we coordinated with our friend Ralph to meet back at his place by dinner time. We had a long walk to our parking garage, but checked out with no hassle. We didn’t use all the time we’d reserved, but when it came down to it, we parked in a primo spot in downtown San Francisco from 10:00 am until about 5:30 pm for ten dollars.

Our evening meal was in a lovely, open-air Thai restaurant near San Rafael. The day ended with a viewing of “Incredibles 2”, presented by the film’s very own production designer.