If you're driving from Santa Cruz towards the Bay Area, go north on highway 1 and turn right at Half Moon Bay. Unless something has changed since 1995 (and why would it?) it's a nice drive. Better than Highway 17.
I remember some row boats. Those were nice. Also, I had fried oysters at a restaurant whose name I can't remember. But it was on a hill.
Cable car museum/headhouse.
Cartoon art museum, although it seems to be in the middle of relocating right now?
I went to wine county and stayed in a converted rail car. That was nice. Also nice, wine.
Sadly, I shall be in Italy.
Offhand, the Museum of the African Diaspora is good.
Also, is Sally visiting or matriculating? Kudos to her if the latter.
If you want to mail wine to Pennsylvania, you need to tell the UPS people that you are shipping olive oil.
Comment 6 can be sung to the tune.
She's matriculating at UC Santa Cruz. She is already planning to sign up for surfing lessons. I'm proud, but I'm also kind of expecting her to never come home.
Wait a week after she leaves before you turn her bedroom into a sewing room.
Her brother will have moved into it before I get back. He's been in a windowless crevice for seven years now, so with her gone they'll switch rooms. (That is, when she comes home, she sleeps in the windowless crevice.)
Mid-September, weather could be glorious. Get a bike (either one of the check-out ones or a rental) and ride back-and-forth across the GG bridge and then along the Embarcadero. Or walk on the bridge. Mooching around the Mission can be fun, varied and variously pretentious window-shopping and you can eat well. A cone from Mr. & Mrs. Miscellaneous and a stroll in Dogpatch. Stroll in GG Park and visit to the Academy of Sciences, although my favorite museum experience in SF is the downstairs at the Legion of Honor - ceramics and books rooms, yum yum yum. If you weren't from NY I'd suggest visiting Britex if you like to textile shop, but it seems pointless, sub-coals to the great Newcastle.
Would be delighted to meet for dinner, although have to fly to DC the next day so work could be annoying.
Hope your daughter enjoys UCSC! Go bannana slugs!
(I'd pass along more frivolous ideas re: perfume, clothing, make-up but don't think that's your thing - let me know if that would amuse, though!)
I'm a fan of the Exploratorium. Take a ferry (maybe from Oakland to SF), but since you have a car, maybe not. And yes, taking highway 1 to 92 to 280 is a pretty way to drive to SF. Maybe do a short hike on skyline without having to worry about ticks.
San Francisco has great city stuff, but definitely its comparative advantage to NYC is that it also has amazing nature very close. So I think 1 is great advice. There are some great spots on the coast to stop, my favorite is Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. (Keep an eye out also for the most beautiful Taco Bell in the world in Pacifica.) You could get lunch somewhere in the western half of San Francisco (I'd go to Burma Superstar in the Richmond or PPQ in the Sunset or Magnolia in the Haight) and then cross the Golden Gate and see the redwoods in Muir Woods.
Or maybe you hate nature and wouldn't enjoy this.
(Well, really what I'd do is spend all day in Berkeley eating at all my favorite restaurants and indulging in nostalgia.)
Yeah, perfume, clothing, and makeup I could probably all get the same things here, and I don't do that either. But everything else you suggest sounds good -- the Embarcadero is part of the SF waterfront? I don't know SF at all.
The buildings still look like Bullitt, but the cars are probably newer and slower.
The ridge trail in the Presidio would be a way to get a quick dose of nature without leaving the city.
There's probably an art museum, but I bet the ones in New York have nicer art.
Things distinctively great about the Bay Area: nature and mexican food. The drive on 1 is a good idea. Drive up to the Marin Headlands and look out at the GG and the city from there. It's gorgeous. The walk across the bridge is way overrated; yes, it's pretty, but you're also ten feet from six lanes of traffic. It's loud and often too windy to enjoy. I'd also recommend Muir Woods, because redwoods, which are the best, and which you won't find anywhere near where you live.
I've been away too long to reliably recommend a good taqueria, so I'll defer to the current locals, or just google up one of a dozen "best taquerias in SF" lists and find one near where you'll be.
Yes, the Embarcadero wraps around from Fisherman's Wharf (I'd avoid, hideously overrun with tourists and just not that interesting) along the Bay side down underneath the Bay Bridge to South Beach/China Basin - a good long stretch.
The Exploratorium moved to Pier 15 a couple of years ago, it is a fun place although to be honest I think of it as somewhere to go with kids.
If the local plain-clothes police detectives as you "Do you feel lucky?", I strongly recommend answering with a polite "No."
8
Oh, tell her to take some Linguistics and Anthropology courses, SC is really top notch in both departments. Also eat some salt water taffy.
5
Where in Italy will you be?
8
Oh, tell her to take some Linguistics and Anthropology courses, SC is really top notch in both departments. Also eat some salt water taffy.
5
Where in Italy will you be?
Oops.
Also, I would recommend just walking around for things to do in sf. There's great Italian food, but I suppose that's true in NY as well.
If you want to do non-touristy things, you could do the foolishmortal special. Hit up my old hood in the outer Richmond: HK movies at the 4 star, books at green apple, then lunch at either Burma superstar or Shanghai dumpling king en route to a moderate hike along the cliffs from the sutro baths along the lands end trail. They redid the actual trail, so while it's beautiful, it's even better if you know the old paths, but that involves scrambling along 100' cliffs above the ocean if you go the wrong way, so, maybe not. Anyway, it dumps you out back on the edge of the Richmond, maybe four blocks from the 38 (major bus line). You can also detour a little bit to check out the Legion of Honor. They've got a Thinker!
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Victory in Boston!
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If you stay in Oakland, driving up 1 to SF and then over to Oaklans for sleeping is more of a pain. My alternative suggestion is that on the day you drop Sally off in Santa Cruz, drive south on 1 instead. It is about 1.5 h to Big Sur, and the views are amazing. Even just to Carmel is nice. I slightly prefer it to the drive north to SF. There are also roadside produce stands. Buy whatever is in season as a snack. Then, you can just take 17 to Oakland. The trip from Santa Cruz "over the hill" is a little freaky if you don't drive often - curvy mountain road - but it is the fastest. I also would say that unless you get to Muir Woods super early, parking is a pain, but if you start at Mt. Tam instead, there was way better places to park and the trails connect, so you can get ocean views AND redwoods (look at Stimson Beach trail).
Does Sally want to buy my grandmother's house and just stay forever? It's just down the hill from UCSC . . .
I'm pretty sure the highway to big Sur is still closed. And it's easy to do too much driving running from pillar to post.
If you want nice tacos i think better in Oakland, v good taco trucks easily findable, esp in Fruitvale etc.
GG bridge is noisy, but mid September might be clear as a bell, warm (for here) and calm-could be ridiculously awesome. And you wanted touristy! :)
If you want to ride a cable car catch the one that runs up-down California rather than the Powell - Mason ones, no line, actually used by locals. The kid took it down to bart on his ucb commute this summer.
Green Apple books is nice, i love the Inner Richmond, that stretch of Clement. The kid took classes in a 2nd storey front studio a block or so from GA for a while, glorious sprung floors in an early 20c building, clearly built for dance. The back studio is a ballroom dancing school, hilarious scenes there, from the after school kids with girls towering over their partners and the wound-like-a-top instructor shouting "and cha cha cha!" To the Saturday afternoon oldster dances with all the Chinese and Russian couples ...
People only go to those to watch a Russian crash.
Oakland now has bike stations, which might be a more relaxing place to bike around idly than SF. And you could go around the lake.
If you hadn't said you were driving, I'd suggest hitting all the wine tasting store fronts in Healdsburg.
Climbing Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower is fun, and the tower itself is decorated with 30's murals (i.e., leftish), and you can usually find wild parrots nearby. I second the Cable Car Museum; very steampunk vibe. If you haven't ridden the cable cars it's worth it.
Down 101, the Computer Museum a stone's throw from Google is pretty cool, if you are feeling nerdy. The new Apple flying saucer wasn't done yet when I was last in Silly Valley but it's supposed to be amazing looking (and stupid as an actual building for actual humans).
I'd agree that you will probably be able find better Mexican food than in NYC; other food types probably are better in NYC. Still, there is a lot of really good food in SF.
I'm pretty sure the highway to big Sur is still closed.
Depends what you mean. You can easily get to Pfeiffer State Park. Beyond that, it's somewhat complicated.
For what it's worth, I think if Sally's up for a hike, it could be big fun to drive south from Santa Cruz, through Moneterey, and then stop at Point Lobos State Reserve. It's lousy with quintessentially California views.
Go to Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, and watch the surfers out on Steamer Lane.
29: The closure is Big Sur and south. I try to make it to Point Lobos every time I am in Santa Cruz. It is a bit of driving, but not arduous and you can stop at turnouts and marvel at the scenery. It's one of my favorite things to do, and it's a lot easier from Santa Cruz than from SF.
Oh, and our luck at getting rental cars upgraded to convertibles when we mentioned driving along PCH has been excellent.
Also, my haste to post led to some gnarly subject verb thing there, was = are!
Or what VW said. Should have updated as I was writing.
Is Santa Cruz the big long pier with all the seal?
Yes. Sea lions and seals, but the sea lions are the ones that bark.
I don't recall if there was barking or not.
Huh, the noice is usually the first thing people comment on when I play tour guide to friends there.
All I remember is 17 years ago we drove south from San Francisco, got as far as this huge pier, walked around for a bit, and then drove back.
We felt like we had to have a definite place where we turned back so it didn't sound like we were aimless.
It's probably too far out of the way, but the hole where Jack London tried to build a house is nice to see.
I'm still a big fan of Taqueria Vallarta on 24th in the Mission, and would be delighted to dine with you, LB, there or elsewhere.
And that's how, sheerly to avoid awkwardness, the Hicks visited Santa Monica.
Green Apple books is nice, i love the Inner Richmond, that stretch of Clement.
Can confirm. Also, decent kvass and other russian things in the nearby Cinderella Bakery and its cafe, though probably not better than anything you could get in NYC (though possibly all that stuff is terrifically inconvenient for you there).
That was me. Or you could go to Dong Bei Mama!
Adding my voice to those who recommend the redwoods. I haven't been in SF in decades so don't know restaurants etc but the redwoods were like nothing I've ever seen. In the daytime awe inspiring, stoned at night it was so dark and they were so big and overwhelming that I was too scared to get out of the car.
So have consulted with the better half! He agrees with ogged re: bridge too loud and recommends:
- Park at Fort Mason, walk to Van Ness at Aquatic Park and catch a 28 bus (it's the beginning of the route, so only one direction), which will take you to the GG Bridge toll plaza. Walk down from the toll plaza to Crissy Field (follow the signs) and follow the Bay back to Fort Mason and your car. Splendid Bay views, the Bridge, sailboats, windsurfers, kitesurfers, people playing in and near the water and you get a lovely feel for what the Bay is about. Will take about an hour to walk this.
- If you don't mind leaving the car at Fort Mason, walk from there to the beginning of the F Line (near Fisherman's Wharf) and ride a streetcar to the Ferry Building, get yourself a coffee at one of the hipster joints, and then walk back north on the Embarcadero. There is a hidden walk next to the Bay around Pier 1 and several of the others, culminating in the walk around the Exploratorium at Pier 15. You'll be on your own pretty much except for occasional pockets of elderly East Asian and South East Asian fishermen, let us all pause and hope they are not eating their catch. At that point you can catch an F north back to your car ... OR
- Hare off west on foot and climb Telegraph Hill ... AND/OR ...
- Take an F back south to the Ferry Building and have an excellent and well-deserved lunch at Boulevard (cool building too) ... OR
- Continue on a F west on Market up to Zuni at Market and between Gough and Franklin and have a well-deserved and excellent lunch.
The better half would be happy to join you if you would like a (suave and amusing in my highly partisan opinion) lunch companion
- From the Zuni branch of this adventure you are in the Hayes Valley, pleasant and worth a stroll, a cup of tea or coffee and a little something at 29th c café are most definitely recommended.
- From the Boulevard branch you are ... a block from my office and a gigantic pile of appellate records. Not recommended!
Have fun!
20th c café.
I am starting to doubt my strong feeling that Muir Woods is not worth it if you are only here for one day, bc some healthy dose of that opinion is based on having been around redwoods all my life. They are ... the woods. Very very nice woods. But the woods. And parking and crowds at Muir Woods aaaargh so unpleasant.
Ano Nuevo is my personal favorite coastal park, but it is hard to go too far wrong with the coastal parks for *drama* and windswept gorgeousness.
There are redwoods on the UCSC campus.
Yes! And also in .. Redwood Park in Oakland. Muir Woods is just not necessary.
Heavenly along the Navarro River, don't get me wrong, love the woods. Don't love the Muir Woods experience.
The elephant seals at Año Nuevo are pretty damn cool. It's a short-ish, easy hike over dunes out to the beach.
I would be up for an early meal, especially if tacos, especially if Taqueria Vallarta.
No, you're right about Muir Woods. Not part of a one day visit.
Next time I'm in the Bay Area, I think I'll try to get someone to ride a bike around Angel Island with me.
I endorse Foolishmortal's suggestions in 26, at least the Burma Superstar + Lands End / Sutro Baths / Legion of Honor hike.
Twin Peaks is super touristy but also (depending on the weather) awesome. Might be worth hiking/biking up to it (it was my go-to quick exercise bike routine).
I like walking across the Golden Gate bridge. The car noise fades into the background, and every time I've been out there the traffic patterns have left moments where there are long gaps between cars. But I haven't been across since maybe 2010, when I briefly lived in the Inner Richmond and could walk over there fairly easily.
Also, if you're driving directly back to Oakland from Santa Cruz, I recommend avoiding 17, even if you're going on an off hour and not at rush hour when it's at its absolute worst.
Leaving out driving 1 to SF and then across, which others have already recommended, I'd take 1 to 84, then Dumbarton to 880 over taking 1 to 92, then San Mateo Bridge to 880, but the 92 route is probably faster because it's freeway once you cross the mountains from Half Moon Bay. I just like 84 as one of those less trafficked, windy roads, but then you might hate those kinds of roads.
Since that's a weekday, any eastbound route across the bay or up from San Jose in the evening commute hours is going to be hellish, so be prepared.
Whatever you do be sure to wear something flowers in your hair.
I thought I had done my due diligence reading the entire thread. No one told me I bad to click the links.
67: Seconded. Absolutely amazing. Also, the strip of Vietnamese restaurants around Ellis and Larkin.
And right by Zuni & Hayes Valley (also public library so near my heart ♥ but irrelevant to lb's touristic interests!), oh and in the Hayes Valley is an excellent shop for lingerie, very strong on Italia brands not just French hang on I'll look up the name ... Alla Prima, a few doors down is Sean, get your boy something gorgeous!
Sean being a menswear store rather than more lingerie?
(I am processing this thread, but have to google literally all the proper nouns. I am realizing that I know literally nothing about San Francisco -- I've been there a few times, but never for long enough to learn anything about where stuff is.)
Yes, Emile Lafourie https://www.seanstore.com/ endorsed, if i recall correctly, by ogged himself.
Also in Hayes Valley is an excellent shop for corsets (Dark Garden), and some ok shoe shops. And an izakaya-style restaurant I've never been to but which is supposed to be tip top.
I have several garments from Emile Lafourie but I am less enamored of it as a brand than I once was.
Aw. This thread is making me homesick, and I never even lived in the Bay....
totally can see how Sean is too unedgy for your style, neb! and the better half wan't thrilled with the longevity/robustness of the painter jacket he got from them, but the kid wears one of their scarves nearly every day and we regularly get him one of their floral shirts for christmas or a birthday gift. this is very nice - a splurge, but very nice: https://www.seanstore.com/product-page/lola-orange and they have it in a blue colorway as well. and the guys in the shop are very nice.
Wow. Living in places where a house can cost more than $1,000 a month really raises the bar on what seems reasonable for other purchases too.
I wore one of their corsets for a weekend to see if it would help with the joint instability pain. The shop owner laced me in and it was absurd my body just went yep no problem! And wow the morning after wearing the thing remarkably little pain, my ribcage stabilized and everything else that is constantly slipping out and being so f*cking excruciating had a bit of a break. But i realized I'm just not up for moving through life being perceived as a fetishist. Weak!
They guys in the shop also once remembered me after an interval of like a year, and I've only ever made fairly small purchases on sale there (including a painter jacket!).
That too, but I'm too polite to say.
Newt's a quietly dressed young man. I could get him into that shirt either (1) if it were a gray hoodie instead or (2) with the aid of elephant tranquilizers.
Elephant tranquilizers or floral shirts?
You messed up my joke (I was going to say, "I would have thought horse tranquilizers")
Probably not necessary to visit Sean as there's one right here in NYC.
84: Have you ever seen a raging elephant in Ohio?
I bought some very nice stuff at Sean about ten years ago, but the last time I looked at the site, I didn't see anything I'd wear. Lafaurie seems to have changed quite a bit. These days I shop at Charles Tyrwhitt.
My kid is not a quiet dresser, never was ❤❤❤. And ogged, if you've gone from Sean to tyrwhitt it isn't just sean that changed.
It's always 50 years ago somewhere.
In almost-but-actually-not-perfect timing, I'm going to be in Oakland next month as well, but leaving the day before LB is arriving.
I'll be there Sept. 7 to Sept. 11, Sept. 7 (a Thursday) being the easiest day for me, meetupwise. Other nights could work, though. Drinks or dinner, anyone?
California Oakland or the regular one?
You could buy M/tch a floral shirt.
Could one of the front page posters bump 93 to the front page as an addendum to LB's meetup post or on its own? Tx.
More suggestions: if you do wind up driving up 1 to Half Moon Bay, consider eating at the Moss Beach Distillery, in Moss Landing a bit north of Half Moon Bay. It was an old smuggling point for rumrunners during Prohibition, has its own ghost story, and is a nice restaurant overlooking the ocean with some great views.
In San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum is pretty spectacular (downtown, near City Hall). I've also enjoyed the Museum of Modern Art (on Third Street, close to the Museum of the African Diaspora that Minivet already mentioned), though you may get enough of that sort of thing in NY. If you like baseball, the Dodgers are in town playing the Giants if you can make it up to SF by 7:15 on the 12th.
If you want redwoods without having to drive up to Muir Woods, there's Henry Cowell State Park a bit north of Santa Cruz along highway 17. There's a tourist train that runs twice a day between Felton, next to the park, and the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, at least during the summer, although the schedule is more convenient for those in Felton going down to Santa Cruz rather than vice versa. (Also, after August 19, the beach train is weekends only, so won't fit with your visit).
While San Francisco has the big tourist attractions, since you are staying in Oakland, there is stuff to see on the East Bay side as well if you just want to hang out near where you're staying. I've always loved the Berkeley Botanical Gardens, off the road going up into the hills behind the football stadium. The Oakland Museum is often interesting. The Oakland Zoo is pretty nice, and has done some good work with open-air animal exhibits. You can take the air tram to dangle your feet near the lion enclosure and see the buffalo on the hill, and then take the zoo train to see the exhibits on the far side of the zoo. There are some nice restaurants on the water down in Jack London Square.
I'm interested in dinner on the 13th with LB and friends, and dinner sometime during Sir Kraab's vist. Thursday the 7th doesn't work well for me, but the rest of those nights should work.
I have a whole bunch of cheeseball touristy suggestions I genuinely loved:
The Detour app has some very good walking tours in San Francisco, with the bonus of not requiring interaction with other human beings. I really enjoyed the Haight tour they do, and it involves lots of interaction with the environment.
I also recommend the Emperor Norton's Fantastic San Francisco Time Machine walking tour (https://www.facebook.com/EmperorNortonSF/). It's completely charming and covers a lot of different points of interest and eras of San Francisco history, and the guide is a sweetheart and a half.
It's also never a bad idea to stop in at Spike's Coffees & Teas (https://www.facebook.com/spikescoffee/) to read and relax, and it's only a couple of blocks from a BART station and the terminus of the F and F-Market streetcar lines.
I enjoyed The Beat Museum, but I don't actually know very much about that era or that genre so it all fell roughly into "that's neat" territory.
I really, really, really enjoyed doing one of the "Tours of the Tales" (http://www.toursofthetales.com/) self-guided tours of "Tales of the City" locations. Good exercise, free, and I'm a big fan of the books so I really had a ball.
Alcatraz is absolutely worth it. The walking tour of the prison itself is phenomenally good. I think I've gone every time I've been to San Francisco, no lie.
Good food I've had in San Francisco:
Curry Boyzz (http://curryboyzz.com/)
Comstock (http://www.comstocksaloon.com)
Franciscan (franciscancrabrestaurant.com)
Fior d'Italia (fior.com)
The Sycamore (thesycamoresf.com)
And... uh... the donut place... fuck it. I can't remember.
And... uh... the donut place... fuck it. I can't remember.
Bob's? Dynamo? SF doughnuts are really pretty special, though I do miss Doughnut Plant. Have (half of, at most) an apple fritter.
The Camera Obscura at the Cliff House is cool, and compatible with 26's itinerary.
We saw whales at the beach in Pacifica yesterday. It might be worth a stop at Pigeon Point, even though it's not the normal migration season.