After picking us up in Sausalito, minus the few who chose to stay for lunch and take the ferry back later, Michael told us that we were going back to San Francisco the pretty way. We wound up the side of another hill and this time came out at a lay-by which is a viewpoint for the Golden Gate Bridge. This was an unscheduled bonus stop, which the others missed out on! We stopped at the top of the hill so we could all take photographs of this remarkable structure and the bay.
I like the idea that the reason it is painted "international orange" is that when the bridge was first built, it was meant to be silvery grey but the residents liked the colour of the primer so much, that they launched a campaign to keep it that colour so that it could be seen more easily in the fog!
Finally, after our brief stop, Michael took us back over the bridge and through the city once again to the Pier 41 starting point. On the way, we passed George Lucas's brand new base for Industrial Light & Magic, responsible for the special effects in so many films nowadays - formerly in Marin County, up past Muir Woods, this is now in a central location in San Francisco itself on the edge of the Presidio. It looks very modern, red brick built with solar panels all over the roof, compared to the more historic look of the rest of San Francisco.
Michael also reeled off the names of many of the celebrities who live in San Francisco up on the hills where the price of the cheapest house is measured in millions of dollars. Again, most of these houses are in the Presidio Heights, away from the tourists and the area looks very smart.
We arrived back at the area around the wharves and piers is decked out with lots of flowers and very pretty. I had lunch at Neptune's at the end of Pier 39, which has superb views over the bay across to Sausalito, Tiburon and Alcatraz. Internally, the restaurant contains many slight changes of level so each table has an unobstructed view out over the water, much like the McCormick & Kuleto's does up at Ghirardelli Square. After lunch, I looked around lots of the shops there. It is hard to believe that it's only been around for just about 30 years. There are lots of plaques around the pier describing the history of how the pier came to be reconstructed as a pleasure destination and how it was funded and some of the challenges that they faced in building it.
After picking us up in Sausalito, minus the few who chose to stay for lunch and take the ferry back later, Michael told us that we were going back to San Francisco the pretty way. We wound up the side of another hill and this time came out at a lay-by which is a viewpoint for the Golden Gate Bridge. This was an unscheduled bonus stop, which the others missed out on! We stopped at the top of the hill so we could all take photographs of this remarkable structure and the bay.
I like the idea that the reason it is painted "international orange" is that when the bridge was first built, it was meant to be silvery grey but the residents liked the colour of the primer so much, that they launched a campaign to keep it that colour so that it could be seen more easily in the fog!
Finally, after our brief stop, Michael took us back over the bridge and through the city once again to the Pier 41 starting point. On the way, we passed George Lucas's brand new base for Industrial Light & Magic, responsible for the special effects in so many films nowadays - formerly in Marin County, up past Muir Woods, this is now in a central location in San Francisco itself on the edge of the Presidio. It looks very modern, red brick built with solar panels all over the roof, compared to the more historic look of the rest of San Francisco.
Michael also reeled off the names of many of the celebrities who live in San Francisco up on the hills where the price of the cheapest house is measured in millions of dollars. Again, most of these houses are in the Presidio Heights, away from the tourists and the area looks very smart.
We arrived back at the area around the wharves and piers is decked out with lots of flowers and very pretty. I had lunch at Neptune's at the end of Pier 39, which has superb views over the bay across to Sausalito, Tiburon and Alcatraz. Internally, the restaurant contains many slight changes of level so each table has an unobstructed view out over the water, much like the McCormick & Kuleto's does up at Ghirardelli Square. After lunch, I looked around lots of the shops there. It is hard to believe that it's only been around for just about 30 years. There are lots of plaques around the pier describing the history of how the pier came to be reconstructed as a pleasure destination and how it was funded and some of the challenges that they faced in building it.
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