Ciao!

"Sometimes happiness is riding around on a Vespa saying 'Ciao'." 

If you haven't seen Eddie Izzard stand-up, I highly recommend it. This quote makes sense when you see what we drove around in to tour San Francisco.

Marshall saw these on his last trip and we had to give them a try. They are called Go Cars and are three-wheeled cars with GPS-linked narration. The idea is to drive a specific route (with GPS guiding you) while a recorded narrator  comments on the sites you pass. The GPS knows when you're off-course and will wait to pick up the narration when you get back on track. But this allows for some exploration or pit stops along the way. It was awesome!

We decided that Marshall would drive and I would read the map when necessary. That was a no-brainer; I would have been a mess if I had to navigate a new city and react quickly to the GPS instructions.  But that meant I took all of the pictures, so be prepared for only a few decent ones! There are shots that even I don't understand or know why I took them. 

The weather was comfortable, but there was serious fog at the beginning of our ride. Unfortunately, we started near the Golden Gate Bridge and could only see the top poking out of the fog. Then I learned that the fog doesn't really go far inland. So as we weaved from the shore to the city and back, the fog came and went. So odd!

Heavy fog

However, it was perfectly clear to see the plenty of other sites, particularly in Golden Gate Park, such as:

Windmill

Bison

Chinese Pagoda

Golden Gate Park was lovely, and I'd love to go back to explore it more closely (especially the Japanese Garden). It is a beautiful, quiet but well-used park, and I would definitely have loved going there often if I live in San Francisco. It is a fabulous park, yet accessible and inviting.

We also headed up to Twin Peaks. We drove up there the night before but didn't get very good pictures. It was a perfect day to take some panoramic shots. 

View from Twin Peaks

Still Twin Peaks but you can finally see the Golden Gate Bridge

There are a few different tours, varied by length and neighborhoods. They range from a two-hour ride to a all-day (about 5 hours). Guess which one we took? :) So we puttered around all day and even took time to stop for lunch. The recording recommended Liverpool Lil's, where Joe DiMaggio used to eat lunch often. It was decorated with really cool pictures and newspaper articles, but we opted to eat on the patio. I'm sure you can sense a theme with our impending move to Alaska - we spent time outside in nice weather every possible moment. I had an amazing seafood stew and we were amused by the stoner blatantly smoking up next to us on the patio. Only in San Francisco!

Well, then we had a little problem starting our car. No worries; Marshall was able to figure out that it was a blown fuse and quickly got us going. Much to the delight of our audience on the patio. :)

We proceeded to see the famous Painted Ladies (also known as the houses in opening credits of Full House), the Presidio, the Haight-Ashbury district (still hippy and funky, though there is a Whole Food there as well) and Chinatown. We also drive down Lombard Street! There was another Go Car in front of us and we all had crowd watching was we descended the hill. People were taking pictures and laughing over the cars, and really friendly as we waved at them all over town. :) 

I thought they would be scary being so small but it was fine. And just as thrilling as I imagine a motorcycle or bicycle in the city. We were allowed to drive wherever we wanted, but the tour specifically takes you on a route to avoid the steepest hills. The cars run from 50cc to 150cc, so they can't actually climb every hill in the city. It was like driving a lawnmower or go-cart around town. But it was soooooo much fun! I would recommend to anyone who doesn't mind driving in cities and doesn't get flustered easily (the GPS lagged in some areas so we had to use the map or make some adjustments along the way to get back on preferred routes)

Famous cross streets

Descending Lombard Street

Marshall concentrating on the windy road

Chinatown - amazing and I can't wait to explore it in the future