Things to Do

San Francisco is a great city for visitors - there are tons of things to do and see in and around the city. And it's only a short drive to some of the most beautiful scenery in the world - Marin County and Wine Country to the North, Santa Cruz, Monterey and Carmel to the South and Lake Tahoe and Yosemite a bit further to the East.

Plus, on the weekend of our wedding there are some very special events going on in San Francisco - including the Fleet Week Air Show (with the Blue Angels - the US equivalent of England's Red Arrows).

The list below is hardly exhaustive but it contains some of our favorite things to do and some of the things that our visitors over the years have told us they love.

Fleet Week


Every year, in October, part of the US Navy Fleet lands in San Francisco for a weekend of celebrations. The highlights for many people are the air shows over the Golden Gate Bridge on both Saturday and Sunday, culminating in a display by the Blue Angels. There is also a parade of navy ships and the opportunity to tour some big navy boats. For more info and a schedule of events, click here: http://www.military.com/fleetweek



The Best of San Francisco

With so many things to do in San Francisco, it's worth getting a guide book, but here are some of the things that we recommend to visitors.

1) Tour Alcatraz


Of all the "touristy" things to do in SF, a trip to Alcatraz is one that we'd recommend highly. You take a ferry from Pier 39 over to the island, take a guided walk up to the jail block, and then collect your headphones for an audio tour narrated by former inmates and prison guards. If you have time, I'd recommend the evening tour if its available - as the sun goes down, the cell block gets very spooky. There is only one tour company that has the franchise for the official tours (all the other ferry companies just cruise around the island rather than taking you onto the island) and the tours can get booked up a good few weeks in advance. So it is worth booking early. http://alcatrazcruises.com

2) Ride a bike over the Golden Gate Bridge


If the weather is nice, there is no better way to spend a day than on a bike crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and heading down to the quaint town of Sausalito. From the Blazing Saddles Bike Shop, it is about 10 miles to Sausalito or, if your legs are up to it, you can continue on to beautiful Tiburon for brunch or lunch at Sam's or Guyermo's bars. In either case, you can jump on the ferry back to San Francisco. Most of the ride is flat, with just the hill up to the Golden Gate Bridge to tackle (and many folks get off and push with a few stops for sightseeing and ice cream). http://www.blazingsaddles.com/


3) Visit the Musee Mechanique


While Fisherman's Wharf can seem like a tourist mecca filled with expensive souvenir shops and painted people pretending to be statues, the Musee Mechanique is worth a visit. It is a small museum that's free to enter but it features an array of old fashioned penny arcade machines, old style arcade games and fun fairground curios. http://www.museemechanique.org/index.html

4) Eat Dim Sum


Dim Sum is the name for a Chinese cuisine that involves a wide range of small dishes often eaten as breakfast or brunch. We often go to a Dim Sum restaurant on Sunday morning. Many of the restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown will offer Dim Sum in the morning, so just walk around and find a place that looks popular. In most places, waitstaff walk around the restaurant with trolleys full of food. You point at what you want and they give you a small plate of it. It is fun to share, but you have to be prepared to try new things and perhaps not know what you're getting before you bite into it!

5) Eat sausages and drink beer


The Haight Ashbury area is a popular place for tourist looking for a tasty of the Summer of Love, but we much prefer to visit the Lower Haight a few blocks East. Our favorite thing to do is to get a grilled sausage from Rosamunde's Sausage Grill and then take it next door to the Toronado bar, which has more than 50 beers on tap and 100's more in bottles. Rosamunde's and http://www.toronado.com/