Trip to the beautiful city of San Francisco

My husband and I decided to visit San Francisco for our Christmas holidays. It was my first visit and one of my dream come true as I have been hearing so much about this city. We started in our car from home and it was a 6 hour drive as there was traffic in most highways due to holiday season. We trusted our iphone and google maps for directions. After about 4.5 hours, we lost track.. We couldnt find out a Pacheco Pass..and we were kind of stuck within an area. Later we made it out and checked into our Hotel "The Domain" in E EL Camino Real, Sunnyvale. After snacking a "Make your own grand slam" dinner at Denny's, we went to sleep.

The hotel provided a complimentary breakfast; it consisted of muffins, juice, coffee, bread and danishes. We started by 10 am and picked up a friend on the way. We had to fill in gas as the fifteen gallons we filled the previous day sufficed only till the journey to reach Sunnyvale. Then we headed to San Francisco's Treasure Island to get a view of the Golden Gate bridge. We went through the Bay bridge. After a couple of snaps of the Golden gate and The Alcatraz from this point, we headed to a small hill nearer to the Bridge. The view was fantastic. And lucky me, there wasn't much fog on that day. What do you get when there is a newly married couple and an understanding friend who is a great photographer with an SLR camera : no dearth of snaps with scenic backgrounds - the best part of our trip. Then we left for Fisherman's wharf.

There are a lot of attractions in this area. We spotted the sea lions basking in the sun light on the boats that were tied here.



You could see birds too which come down ; guess for what.. there are lot of tourists here and hence food for the birds. After whiling away some time, we took the boat cruise about 30 min, with a recorded audio explanation of various buildings and places of San Francisco as seen from the boat. We headed directly to the open deck to feel the breeze and enjoy the 360 degree view of the San Francisco downtown from below the Golden gate. During the ride, the boat goes very near to the Alcatraz offering a closer view.

We then headed to the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. As this was my first visit to a wax museum, I was excited about it. After a couple of snaps inside the museum, we walked out and checked the local shops for souvenirs and found an apt souvenir - a half mug that stated "San Francisco was so expensive that I could afford only half of this".

After a tiring day of walking around, we went to an Indian restaurant Annapoorna in the E El Camino Real to fill our tummies. Food was just ok which was a little disappointing. Then we dropped our friend and reached our hotel to hit the bed.

The next day we started for the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. The route we took was very scenic and we reached the Mystery Spot in about 2 hours. We had booked our tour earlier through the internet and had taken a print out along with us.

It was fascinating to see the effects demonstrated, although you do tend to think if they are kind of optical illusions. You can check out more about it here: Mystery_Spot

After the Mystery spot, we started for Muir Woods, Mill Valley. It is famous for being home to old sequoia trees.

It started raining and we were in a dilemma whether to go ahead or not. As we did not have any thing else to do, we thought we would take a chance. It was a different experience reaching this place with rain around, dark woods and small pathways. We reached the Muir Woods but the rain hadn't stopped yet. We waited for a while for the rain to subside and then we decided to enter the park. It was an hour before the closing time and as there were no guides available to give us a tour, we weren't charged for an entry fee. We entered and were on our own. Only a few other groups were there along with us. We went around for a while and had a look at a giant Sequoia tree and a sample age ring of a 1000 years old tree on display. We departed Muir Woods with a hope that we would come along some other time for a leisurely tour. You can see more about this park here http://www.nps.gov/muwo/index.htm

We decided to go to the main city to have a look at the San Francisco roads. By the time we reached the city, the rain stopped. The roads of San Francisco are all hilly; most of the roads go uphill or downhill. The downhill view from any of the roads are beautiful. In some of the roads are beautiful big mansions. I have heard of and seen houses made of wood than concrete in California.
It was a different feeling to see the majestic mansions. And the main city is full of tall structures. I haven't seen such huge buildings in Burbank and it felt like the US as shown in the movies.. We then went to The Crooked street. In the intersection of The Lambord street with the Leavenworth street, is this crooked street. The down is inclined and is built in a zig zag manner. Cars are allowed only one way ; downhill. It was fun to ride down the road.


Well it was time for some food at last..We decided to give a feast to our taste buds and went to HSB - Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Sunnyvale. We ordered mini tiffin, pongal, kothu parota and coffee- everything had the authentic taste of HSB. After dinner, we retired for the day.

The next day we checked out and started back home.
On the way back, we stopped by at the Livermore shiva Vishnu temple. Being Vaikunda Ekadashi and a weekend, there was a lot of rush. After darshan, we had a variety of Prashadam consisting of Pongal, kheer etc.



We reached home by late evening satisfied with the trip and planning for the next one.

Whewwwwwww..........Finally I am done with this post. It took me quite a few days to complete this blog. Hope you enjoyed!