Review our San Francisco itinerary please
 

Hello.
We are hoping for some constructive criticism please of the first draft of our itinerary for a trip to San Francisco from Sunday, September 25, to Sunday, October 2.
We are then going to on to Carmel-Pacific Grove (October 3 and 4) and the winelands (Napa and Sonoma October 5 and 6), so would not need to include day trips within our San Francisco itinerary.
We will see Alcatraz from our boat cruise, and feel this is sufficient as we aren't terribly interested in touring the attraction itself.

Sunday, September 25: We only land at 6pm, so our plans are really limited to getting a cab to our Noe Valley self-catering apartment, leaving our luggage and popping out for some essential groceries. We don't sleep on planes and, after a trip from the UK, expect to be too tired for much exploring.

Monday, September 26: First objectives are to buy a disposable phone and visit the Union Square tourist information centre.
Then we would head back to Noe Valley to explore our immediate neighbourhood, along with the Catro and Mission District. We realise this means backtracking, but we find a visit to the tourist information centre can prove useful as a first port of call.

Tuesday, September 27: 10am Local Tastes of the City tour in North Beach, San Francisco boat cruise, Coit Tower and a wander around North Beach.
In the evening, a visit to AT&T Park to watch a baseball game.

Wednesday, September 28: Shopping in Union Square, and hopefully a walking tour of Chinatown. Perhaps some recommendations here please?

Thursday, September 29: Berkely - we've allocated a day to this, since there seems to be a lot to see.

Friday, September 30: Presidio, then walk across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito (after 1pm as advised on previous posts) and take the ferry back to SF.

Saturday, October 1: Visit the Farmers' Market at Ferry Plaza, SFMOMA

Sunday, October 2: Lombard Street, Painted Ladies and, in the afternoon, Golden Gate Park and the De Young Museum.

We've kept our days as light as possible. We do tend to try and pack too much in and generally enjoy having a wander. We are wondering if we should swop Sunday and Friday. The work on the western walkway of Golden Gate should be complete by then (I think the website says it is closed for September) and I guess we wouldn't have to worry about competing with cyclists? Is this really a big problem? Do they invariably not yield to pedestrians as required?
Appreciate your time and advice.
Thanks
Lisa

You can find most all San Francisco tourist information on line. The one big reason to go to the tourist office is to purchase a pass for using the bus and cable car system, but that pass can also be purchased elsewhere: http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mfares/passports.htm

If you buy a pass, it is also useful to purchase a map of the transportation system.

Fodor's publishes an excellent guide to SF: http://www.fodors.com/world/north-am...san-francisco/

You may also find some good ideas here: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/sanfrancisco/

HTTY

Thank you

We will be there at the same time, 2 weeks and staying not too far from you.

We visit SF regularly and absolutely love doing free tours given by SF public library. A small donation [$5 or so per person] at end of tour is all that is suggested. We have done close to a dozen tours. They cover so many different aspects of SF.
http://www.sfcityguides.org/

Also, a free City Hall tours [given by docents at City Hall] is worthwhile [watch the movie "Milk" first.

Thanks, DebitNM. I didn't know about those tours. I've made a note.

A few years ago we took and greatly enjoyed a tour of the Haas-Lilienthal House: http://www.sfheritage.org/haas-lilienthal-house/

HTTY

HTTY - I didn't know about Haas-Lilienthal house; guess we have evened the score! :o)

This is really what makes Fodors so great - the exchange and sharing of info; the real essence of the site.

Thank you DebitNM, we are hoping to do one of these tours. We'll have a look at their calendar closer to the time to see what's available. We thought a tour would be particularly useful for an area like Chinatown.

My only comment is that you should move Lombard Street to the same day as Coit Tower - much closer.

Thanks sf307, we'll bear that in mind. I did worry that we were already cramming rather a lot into Tuesday's plans.

I love the City Guides tours - definitely recommend at least one.

Regarding the cyclists on the GGB, I think that the problems are overstated and mainly due to a few cyclists who try to zoom through and a few clueless pedestrians who don't watch where they are going. As long as you pay at least a little attention to your suroundings, you should be fine.

I love the City Guides tours - definitely recommend at least one.

Regarding the cyclists on the GGB, I think that the problems are overstated and mainly due to a few cyclists who try to zoom through and a few clueless pedestrians who don't watch where they are going. As long as you pay at least a little attention to your suroundings, you should be fine.

Thanks november_moon, we're looking forward to the walk.

It's a long walk from the north end of the GG Bridge to Sausalito. Is there a bus you can take into Sausalito to catch the ferry back?

Hi Charnees. I didn't realise it was a long walk from the end of the bridge into Sausalito. We will need to look into that further. Thank you. Lisa

I've just had a quick look and the entire walk seems to be two miles, which is fine for us. Would that be accurate?
Thanks
Lisa

Um ISA, it's about 6 miles from the San Francisco side of the bridge into downtown Sausalito. Ye/' you can return on the ferry.

Well, that should have said "UKLisa", not "Um ISA"!

Thanks, I think we can manage that - just done some fairly challenging walks in Wales - and I think the views and experience will be worth the effort.

The views I can vouch for, not the experience (never done it in the 38 years I've lived here :-) )

Reviewing the itinerary today, topping for any final thoughts?
Thank you
Lisa