The City

We decided our first trip exploring the area needed to be to "the city". This is how everyone in the Peninsula area refers to San Francisco. You can drive to the city in less than an hour but we wanted our first trip to be by train so we rode the Caltrain.

The kids LOVED the train. It takes about 45 minutes to get there on a normal train, 30 minutes on an express train.

We didn't have any agenda for the day so we got off the train and started walking. We walked down to the Ferry Station and walked around the farmers market and then walked down to Fisherman's Wharf. It was a beautiful day and there were a lot of street performers and vendors everywhere. We ate lunch on Pier 39 which is full of restaurants and shops.


Alcatraz from a distance....(yes....we did go home and watch "The Rock" that night)
Then we decided to keep walking and walked up to Giradelli Square. At this point we had walked almost four miles so we took a break and let the kids take a nap in the stroller while we enjoyed a hot chocolate from the Giradelli shop.

We were going to take a trolly ride but the lines were long and it didn't take us back where we came so we decided to save it for our next trip.

Once the kids woke up we headed back down to the water to catch a cable car back up to where the train station would take us home.

We quickly discovered that the cable cars are packed at 4 in the afternoon and there was no way a family of four and a huge stroller were going to fit. So we started walking again. By the end of the day we had walked almost 8 miles. Our feet were sore for the next week but it was well worth it. We really enjoyed San Francisco and are looking forward to our next visit.