We arrive in San Francisco...

On Sunday US time, DH and I left Monterey and headed towards San Francisco. Problems caused by bad weather meant that we were unable to go to Yosemite, so we were actually 2 days ahead of schedule for our arrival in SF.

I was sad to leave Monterey as the weather there had fined up and the beaches sure looked inviting, unlike when it had been pouring with rain. We chose to go most of the way on a smaller highway and it went through beautiful country. We passed through smaller towns such as Castroville,Watsonville and Gilroy. At first we drove through rich looking farming country with fields of vegie crops, then through undulating open country that was so green and the road also went through countryside which was covered with trees. Eventually we had to rejoin the bigger highway as we started to head for San Jose where we planned to have lunch.

The interesting vegetation growing on the sand dunes just outside Monterey

Farming country

A large rock near the highway

 San Jose is a large city and we drove around the industrial area first, then the commercial area where we saw the huge complex that is Silicon Valley. We saw that San Jose, like a number of other US cities, also has light rail. DH had despaired of finding somewhere to eat when we came upon a street which was teeming with people and this street had lots of places in which to eat. We finally chose one called Kapps and it turned out to be a lovely old-fashioned restaurant and bar with wood panelling everywhere. We had a burger each, but these were good! The gardens in this street were very pretty with lots of spring flowers in bloom. Many of the streets on San Jose were tree lined as well and I was quite impressed!

San Jose: The streets were lined with these trees which were covered in white blossoms

Part of the Silicon Valley Complex

Kapps, where we had lunch in San Jose

I loved the name of this restaurant

San Jose;The gardens in the street and footpaths were beautiful!

San Francisco is only 46 miles from San Jose, so it wasn’t long before we reached the outskirts of SF. At first we caught a quick glimpse of part of the bay in the distance. We were actually on a double-decker freeway as we came into the city! Then we came into the suburbs and saw some charming wooden houses that I remember seeing in movies and of course also in that old Karl Malden/Michael Douglas TV show, ‘Streets of San Francisco”! Some of the streets are unbelieveably steep. They are steeper than the ones in Rosalie and red Hill in Brisbane!

Looking down a hill towards the city of San Francisco

In the CBD not far from our hotel

The double decker freeway in SF

Looking towards the bay from the freeway

Then we had to turn on the Tom tom GPS to help us find Geary St where our hotel is situated. It is in the CBD (on a hill) and is called the ‘Hotel California’; it is old, quaint, convenient and famous for being immortalised in the song by the Eagles.