San Francisco Vacation: Days 1 & 2

I'm settled back in from vacation, my photos have been Instagrammed to the ends of the earth and I'm finally ready to start sharing the details of my husband & I's recent trip to San Francisco. We flew out of Richmond early Tuesday morning, the 4th of September and returned late on Sunday, September 9th. I'm going to break our trip up into three separate posts. It'll go a little something like this:

Days 1 & 2: City sights and shopping

Days 3 & 4: Muir Woods, Sausalito, Sonoma Valley, more city sights and a Giants-vs-Dodgers baseball game at AT&T Park

Days 5 & 6: Monterey Bay, Pebble Beach (17 Mile Drive), Carmel and a few last city sights

So, if you guys are up for it, I'm gonna go ahead and get started...

We stayed at the historic Mark Hopkins Intercontinental, located at the crest of the famed Nob Hill area, which is just a few short blocks from Chinatown and Union Square. The hotel itself was gorgeous and the service was impeccable.

We enjoyed the location because it was a crossroads for three of the four cable car lines that run throughout the city, but when cable cars were unavailable, the task of walking back up to our hotel after being out all day was quite the workout (and I do mean nearly straight up...think a 45 degree angle). We cabbed it back to our hotel most nights after dinner, but trust us, we'd already done our fair share of climbing SF city streets by lunchtime most days! 

As soon as we dropped off our bags, we headed out for Fisherman's Wharf for some lunch. We had our first cable car experience and we couldn't wipe the goofy grins off our face...we felt like we were in a Rice-a-Roni commercial! Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 offer tons of restaurant options, but we opted for something super casual, so we ended up at a little place called Chowders, where I had clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. We got our first good view of The Rock, where we stood for awhile and wondered what it would have been like to be an inmate there and to be so close, yet so far away from the bustling city (is that creepy?!? probably). The lazy, sunbathing sea lions were enjoying their afternoon nap...most of them were anyway...some of those fat little fellas were Grouchy McGroucherson, barking at any other sea lion that dared to interrupt their slumber. They provided more than a few good laughs!

From Fisherman's Wharf we walked up to Ghirardelli Square and took some long whiffs of all of the chocolatey goodness. Unfortunately we were still too full from lunch to get one of their world famous hot fudge sundaes. (Looking back we should've just done it regardless of how stuffed we were, because we didn't end up ever getting back to the Ghirardelli Square Caffe.) Then we walked our first SF hill and it was a doozy!! Four blocks felt like ten, but at the top we were rewarded with amazing city views and the ever popular Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. (I'll go ahead and insert here that I ended up getting to drive down Lombard Street a couple of days later when we rented a car...it was awesome!)

We ended our first day with some shopping in Union Square and an impromptu concert by a Swedish DJ named AviCii. We grabbed a bite to eat at a sports pub named Lefty O'Douls's and then called it a night. We'd been up since 3am, had flown clear across the country, jammed in as much as we could in our first day and we were exhausted. Climbing into our cozy down bed at the Mark Hopkins that first night felt like a little slice of Heaven. Our trip was off to an amazing start!

We woke early on day 2 (still being on east coast time) and were anxious to get some breakfast, so we headed down a couple of blocks to Lori's Diner. Our diets were completely placed on hold while we were enjoying our vacation, so I splurged and had French toast = mmm mmm mmm!! Since it was early and none of the Union Square stores were open yet, we hopped on a bus on Market Street and took it to the Ferry Building. There were a lot of morning ferry commuters coming into the city from the Oakland side of the Bay, so we tried to stay out of the way while we walked through the market and checked out some of the vendors. So early in the morning, the only stalls open were mostly coffee and pastry places. We sat outside for awhile and took in the view of the Oakland Bay Bridge before we traipsed up through the Financial District and made our way back to the shopping around Union Square. It was then that I proceeded to pick out my two "big" purchases while we were away. If you've seen my haul video (if not click here) then you've already seen my new Tory Burch Jaden Tote and Rebecca Minkoff Mini M.A.C. -- the two newest loves of my life!  ;)  We stopped at Westfield Shopping Center for a smoothie at Jamba Juice (our first of three trips to Jamba Juice that week...we were addicted!) and then made our way back to our room to drop off our shopping bags.

The afternoon was filled with exploring the Palace of Fine Arts (one word: STUNNING!!) and taking in the sights of the Golden Gate Bridge from the beach at Crissy Field. It was so windy and chilly right on the Bay that after we walked around the San Francisco Yacht Club and admired all of the boats for awhile, we headed up a few blocks to the shopping districts of Chestnut Street and Cow Hollow to warm up a bit. We were really excited to try out a restaurant called The Tipsy Pig on Chestnut Street for dinner, but we found ourselves starving by 4:30 and that restaurant didn't open for dinner until 5:30. Boo. I remembered a place that I had seen on Google Maps called Nettie's Crab Shack and I knew that it was in the Cow Hollow area, so we ventured out to find it and boy am I glad that we did!! I had the most amazing Oyster Po'Boy and my stomach is growling now just thinking about it. I forgot to snap any pictures of the restaurant itself, but trust me, it was so cute! If you ever visit SF, hunt down this little place tucked away on Union Street...you won't regret it. We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed people watching. They even turned on the outdoor patio heaters so that we were nice and cozy. I wish that we could have gone back there one more time...it was THAT good!

Getting back to our hotel that evening ended up being a bit of a hassle. We could have easily hailed a cab and been there in ten minutes, but we'd bought a MUNI passport (for public transportation) and wanted to get our moneys worth out of it, but there were no buses running on Union Street that night. Go figure. We walked for awhile and eventually found a bus that would take us in the general direction of our hotel. The "scenic" tour that we took home that night, made getting a hot shower and crawling into bed that much sweeter. And we knew that we needed to get a good night's rest, as the next morning our rental car would arrive at 8am for our first excursion outside of the city. The next day would take us to Muir Woods National Monument, the picturesque Bayfront community of Sausalito and to the heart of Sonoma Valley.

Stay tuned for a recap of days 3 and 4 soon! I hope you guys enjoy this. Feel free to drop me a comment if you have any questions! And I'd love to hear from you if you've ever been to SF...or if you're amongst the lucky ones who have called it your home!

Mendi