San Francisco Day 3: Art, parks and painted ladies

So on tap for Day 3 was the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park and lunch at the Cliff House but we got a little off schedule and had to adjust our plans a bit.

The day was supposed to start with the much anticipated (by me) breakfast at Mama’s, which I had seen on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. But once we saw the line, we ruled that out.

Instead we grabbed a pastry and then headed to catch the Muni to the Palace of Fine Arts. This is basically just a really pretty structure that was built for no other purpose but to look nice at the World’s Fair back in 1915 or something. It was really pretty though and a lovely area that made for great picture taking.

Then it was on to one of the trip highlights, the Golden Gate bridge.  We went out on to the bridge but didn't walk all the way across.

Then we took a bus over to the Legion of Honor which is a lovely arts museum. It had everything from Egyptian relics to artwork to old French furniture. You could spend hours here easily. But we were hungry for lunch and I was really looking forward to the Cliff House. Nick's plan was for us to walk there taking something called the Land’s End Trail—but it was way too cold for me and the wind was blowing so we took another bus instead. We had to wait a bit for a table and we didn’t get a seat by the window but it didn’t matter because you can just go out and take your pictures on the overlook.

Then we decided that we did not want to rush through Golden Gate park so instead decided to take a bus to Alamo Square and see the painted ladies and would do the park the next day. So we started walking toward Ocean Beach next door to the Cliff House and I decided that I just HAD to go put my feet in the Pacific Ocean and have my husband take my picture. So Ben obliged me and we went and did that and surprisingly the water wasn’t even as cold as I thought it would be.

We took the bus to Alamo Square and saw the houses and rested a while before heading back by bus to the hotel.

Dinner that night was at a Spanish restaurant called Gitane which was excellent.

This was my first time to have a drink with elderflower and it was yummy.

The bar that night was supposed to be a place called Rickhouse but it was packed with little seating so instead we went across the street to a place called Murphy’s Pub. We ended up staying out pretty late, getting to bed around 1:00 am.