In 2016, my husband and I checked off a BIG bucket list item in America; San Francisco! Northern California (wine country) in its entirety is on our list but only Sonoma Valley was checked off on this trip.

San Francisco is similar to New York City in that it is a large city, with many distinct neighborhoods. However they are much closer together and more walkable than NYC.  But watch out, with how dramatically hilly San Fran is, walking will wear you out more than you think.

After reading many, many, MANY blogs, tips and tricks about San Fran, I developed a pseudo itinerary for our time there that was pretty intensive but we feel like we really experienced San Fran.

THURSDAY

We arrived on a Thursday late afternoon, and took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) straight to the heart of San Fran which happened to be right next to our hotel! The BART  is an easy and budget friendly option to get from the airport to anywhere in the bay area. From the airport to the hotel, it was about $18.00 round trip per person. There is a TON of shopping in the area near Powell St. and the Parc 55 Hilton Hotel where we stayed. We did a little shopping, eating, and then did happy hour at our hotel bar.

Then we decided to explore some local spots near the hotel and came across the Novela Bar that housed wall to wall books and delicious book-themed drinks. It was essentially heaven for me, bars with books with an old library vibe are my jam!

FRIDAY

Friday was full of lots of wine!! We joined a bus tour to the Sonoma Valley to explore some wineries. Our favorite wineries were the Jacuzzi Winery and the Sebastiani Winery. Wine is good but Sonoma Valley is a super cute town to just visit itself. We loved grabbing a sandwich at the Sonoma Cheese Factory and then hanging out in the picturesque town square.

We met some new friends during the tour and hung out the rest of the night! We ventured to the Mission District to find some cool murals.

We got hungry and decided on some sushi and with a bit of wait for sushi, we went next door to a fun, sporty Irish pub called (of course) the Dubliner. We ended up meeting a couple of San Fran locals there who we met up with later that night. Back to the sushi, it was WELL worth the wait, we highly recommend Saru Sushi Bar.

After a fantastic dinner, we met up with the San Fran locals from earlier and wandered to a lively, rooftop bar called El Techo. It probably had beautiful city views during the daytime too but at night it’s an upbeat bar with tropical drinks and snacks with INCREDIBLE views. Our next and last stop that we remember…is The Chapel. Formerly a chapel, it is now a small music venue with yummy drinks.

SATURDAY

Saturday I had done so much research on all of the views and urban hiking in San Fran. that I had a list of places to go. Our new friends from the winery came along for the adventure.

We started our adventure at the 16^th Avenue Tiled Steps which were beautiful and unique. We

climbed those stairs and then two staircases more to get to some AMAZING views of the whole city at Grandview Park. The view was cool and I highly recommend you check it out.

We then took a bus to the Filbert Street Stairs (corner of Filbert St. and Sansome St.). These are the base of the Coit Tower which is another popular attraction we didn’t pay to go up to the top of it. The Filbert Street Stairs is actually a street with people’s homes right off the stairs! It’s phenomenal that people haul groceries and climb these everyday just to get home. After SO many stairs, we got hungry and ventured into Little Italy for some gelato and pizza. We discovered the most heavenly pizza at Tony’s Pizza. We haven’t found pizza this good in NYC, Chicago or Italy!

We stopped at the Painted Ladies (Full House!), but sadly one of the houses and the most of the park was under construction so we will have to check this out again. Then we wandered around towards Lombard St., and watched the line of cars waiting to go down this legendary, windy street. At the bottom of Lombard St, we saw Ghirardelli in the distance and the girls convinced the boys on a trip to get chocolate; they were not angry once we got there. After some delicious hot chocolate, we headed back to the hotel.

SUNDAY

We flew out early afternoon this day but made sure to check out Chinatown first. We got some cool chopsticks, a good lucky kitty and fortune cookies. Getting fresh fortune cookies at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory  is a must do. It is located at 56 Ross Aly, San Francisco. Also see if you can find the murals of all of the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac, I am a Rabbit. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’ve been here before, please leave a comment with your favorite must-do in San Francisco!

Thanks for reading!