More than a week later

and I still haven't written about our 3rd and final day in SF.



We fully intended to go to Alcatraz Island, so we got up early as we had read that you need to book the ferry in advance. So our intention was to go in the afternoon. However, on arrival we discovered that even if we had tried to book on the day we arrived we would have been out of luck as the day time ferries were booked 7 days ahead and the night time ferries were even worse, booking 11 days ahead!

So that sort of left us stumped for a bit, however we soon got over our disappointment and decided to go on an hour cruise of the Bay. It included a trip up the Golden Gate Bridge coming back around Alcatraz. The bridge was magical as there was a persistent mist throughout of the day and we got close enough to Alcatraz to get a good idea of what a desolate place it must have been.

In the pm we made our way to the Presidio Area to see an Hawaiian Festival. Well we never got to see the festival as we came across the Palace of Fine Arts first


and then we walked along Marina Blvd to the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point at the base of the Bridge.

To be honest the Fort was a much better destination than the festival and we were in luck that some volunteers were dressed up, acting out parts of its history.

All too soon our trip was coming to an end but there was just one more thing I needed to do before we left. Look around the galleries which were literally around the corner from the hotel we were staying at. When I was younger and lived in London, I was always intimated by the private galleries, especially the ones in the west end of London (Cork St in particular). As I have gotten older and wiser (debatable the last word), I have come to see that they are no more or less than shops that sell art, so why should I be intimated? I had a great time looking around the galleries and just wished we could have bought something. We worked out that if we didn't pay college fees plus living expenses, we could actually buy at least one good piece of work each year. Now that would be a pleasure and hopefully an investment, so maybe in a few year times, it will actually happen.

Miro at the Weinstein Gallery
Chagall at the Weinstein Gallery


Enrico Donati at the Weinstien Gallery

Dali at the Christopher Clark Fine Art Gallery.

After a meal at an Indian restaurant, we had one final walk around the area the hotel was in which was was near Union Square. Of course I couldn't leave without taking a couple of pictures of the hearts I had seen around and about.

This person most definitely left her heart in San Francisco