San Francisco: Day 2 - Palace of Fine Arts & Golden Gate Bridge

Saturday morning started bright and early - actually, that's not true. It wasn't even bright yet, since it was 4 am, so we'll just say Saturday started early. Way way way too early. But after a night of Ezzy flailing around, climbing all over us in his sleep, head butting me square in the jaw, and then finally sitting straight up and chattering away, we decided to give up on sleep and start getting ready for the day. As soon as the sky turned from black to gray, we were outside bundled up in hoodies searching for breakfast. Even the bums were still sleeping. 

I love my sleep, but seeing the city all quiet and still in the early morning hours was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It felt more like we lived there than like we were tourists. I love San Francisco so much - from all the random street art you come across, to the crazy characters (After breakfast we walked down to the city hall where an old lady was dancing around with a sword.), to the amazing architecture, and of course - the weather. We also came across a sea gull eating a pigeon while on our morning walk, and I'll never be able to look at Scuttle from the Little Mermaid the same way again.

By the time we got back to our hotel around 9 am we had already walked 5 miles. Ezzy and I took a short cat nap and we were on our way. Originally we wanted to go to Alcatraz, but tickets we sold out for the next month. So our new agenda was to walk around the Palace of Fine Arts, walk across the Golden Gate bridge, and then explore the Golden Gate park. 

We took a cab to the Palace of Fine Arts. I think all the cab rides we took that day were Joe and Ezzy's favorite part of the trip, because Ezzy had to sit on Joe's lap and he was so content to just relax and watch all the cars passing by. At the Palace of Fine Arts a gorgeous bride and her bridesmaids were taking pictures in front of the lake. It was a really cool sight and I can't imagine a more perfect place to get married. Except for the signs posted around the park about extremely aggressive raccoons...wouldn't really want to run into an angry gang of raccoons on my wedding day.

After we explored for a bit we decided to walk to the Golden Gate bridge. According to Google maps it was only about an inch away - not far at all! And we could see it in the distance and it seemed within walking distance. In reality it took awhile to get there, but it was a scenic route, and as I've mentioned before, we like wandering around on foot. Once we got there we decided to keep on walking, and cross the bridge, which neither of us had ever done before. That's about a 4 mile round trip, but we only made it two thirds of the way across then turned back. There was actually a ton of foot traffic on the bridge. And when people decided to stop dead center in the path to take a selfie, things got pretty log-jammed. (Yes, I realize we have a lot of bridge selfies, but we pulled over to the side like the reasonable tourists that we are!) Ezzy loved watching all the cars whizzing by. Between the bridge and cab ride, Saturday was by far his favorite day. I would also like to point out what a champ that boy was. For as little sleep as he got, he had very few meltdowns and absolutely loved exploring with us. He's a trooper. 

I realize there are a ton of pics in this post. San Francisco is just too photogenic, I couldn't resist. Sorry! (But not really that sorry.) That is also why I'm splitting Day 2 into two posts. Still to come: Golden Gate Park (which my bff and her children joined us for a few hours) and Joe's early bday celebration at Fisherman's Wharf. 

Have you ever been to SF, and what are your favorite spots to explore? We're already planning a return trip so I'd love to hear other experiences!