Trip Report - SF/Big Sur
 

Just back from a wonderful trip to San Francisco/Big Sur. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. Arrived on 8th, checked into Hotel Rex - can's say enough good things about this hotel - good location, very quiet, staff excellent, helped with our every need. Arrived on husband's birthday - when I told front desk this, they fixed a birthday basket up for him, put in room when we went out. Walked around a bit on our first day, ate at Uncle Vitos for dinner - early night.
Saturday - Farmer's Market - had breakfast there - really enjoyed this, back to room to change shoes - then cable car to Fisherman's Wharf (cause you gotta do it if you go to SF!), had dinner at Boudin's - nice view, food ok (ate upstairs at restaurant) - cable car back to room (love the cable car - headed to Walgreen's for some supplies - highlight of day - ran into the San Francisco (doublemint) twins - they were an absolute hoot - talked to them for a while, got some good pictures, etc, they were quite an "act".
Sunday - up early - Breakfast at Sears, very good, Glide Church, very different, then private limo to Salsalido and Muir Woods - great limo service - loved Muir Woods - could have stayed there many, many hours - the Redwoods met my expectations - wonderful experience - it's amazing to see God's creation - took lots of pics. Ate in Salsalido on way back, very good, don't remember name, limo driver suggested it - ate right on waterfront - loved this area also. To be continued.

Monday - rented car and left city stopped in San Jose toured the Winchester house - pretty interesting, behind the scenes tour wasn't to good, but first tour was. Had seen this on discovery channel or something. Drove to Carmel - stayed at Mission Ranch - loved it there, so peaceful, lots of flowers, very quiet (except dinner there). Decided to eat at Mission Ranch because it was after 8:00 - very loud. Food was good, but to rowdy for us!!
Tuesday - did the 17 mile drive - very lovely, Pfiffer Park and Julia Pfiffer Barnes Park, loved all of these - the trees again - wow - Carmel is a very lovely town also, ended up staying at Mission Ranch 3 nights
Wednesday did Big Sur down to Hearst Castle. The coast was our main course of the day - the crashing waves, the fog - just couldn't get enough of it. Back to MR for the evening.
Thursday - left MR - visited the Mission on Carmel, then on to Monetrey - saw the sea lions there, walked around for several hours enjoying the day, had lunch then left - drove Hwy. 1 to Santa Cruz, saw some of it - then left the coast crossed the mtns on Hwy 17 back to San Jose for 2 nights.
Friday was sort of a down day - stayed at Wild Palms (Sunneyview) - great hotel - lovely room and heated pool, owned by the same co. as Hotel Rex, visited the Tech museum, visited Los Gotes (sp) - lovely town.
Saturday headed back to SF drove across Golden Gate Bridge and down Lombard St before turning car in. Checked back in to Hotel Rex to spend a whole week in the city by the bay - what a week we had planned!! To be continued

Sounds very nice, we have enjoyed the Sunday Jazz Brunch at Mission Ranch, it's a gorgeous property and in a good location. ***kim*** ((l))

Sounds like a great trip.

San Francisco, Sausalito, Muir Woods, Monterey and Carmel were the cornerstones of the first real vacation my wife and I took, several decades ago.

Thanks for bringing back great memories!

The Twins! May they live forever!

Seeing the twins is a real SF experience, jfwap. cabo--I haven't seen the twins in a while. Used to see them almost everyday, after they got off work. Probably not working downtown anymore, they are really get up there in years.

I'll try to finish up my trip report - first on the twins - don't think they are working - but are taking piano lessons. We saw them a second time, but didn't get to talk to them that evening - they were so cute, wanted to ask age, but knew NOT to!!!!!!!!

For a little backtracking - we went to SF Dec 28th for our honeymoon. My mother got really sick, dr. said she might not make it, so we had to cut our trip short, thus the second trip so soon.

Anyhow, got back into the city on 16th, checked back into Hotel Rex, did some shopping on Saturday afternoon after Golden Gate, had a quick dinner at Lori's, then went to see Love Janis. It was very good, also very sad. On Sunday we met a San Francisco Greeter at the hotel, who gave us some wonderful insight about the city, etc, then went on a walking tour with him. Went to Ferry Bldg, then up 378 steps to Coit Tower. Got to see the wild parrots, which I really wanted to, the murals in Coit Tower were quite interesting, then went to the top for the view, next it was North Beach - enjoyed our stroll through there - back to hotel - felt like we'd walked the whole city!! SF Greeters program was really nice - never been in a city that did that before. Monday did the Bay tour around the bridge and the aquarium - both very nice - had some clam chowder in bread bowl - really good. Tuesday we went to the Asian Museum, city hall, and some other things in that area, dont have my notes with me = Asian Art Museum was wonderful, we spent several hours in there, could have stayed all day.
The rest of the week was to be spend seeing more of the lovely museums in the city and shopping, resting, walking, looking, opera, etc.
However, on Wednesday morning we got another call and my mom had been taken back to the hospital and dr. said he was sure she would not pull out of it this time, her organs were shuting down, so same song, second verse, we spent all of Wed. making arrangements to get home again, finally got a flight out at 10:40 p.m. on Wed night, didn't really feel like doing anything else, so just walked around, people watched, etc.

I cannot say enough about the staff at Hotel Rex, especially Jeff, they were so kind to us, he helped with our reservations, stored out luggage when we had to check out of room, etc. And we got the same limo co. to take us to the airport - Sam was wonderful, asked us to call him when we got home to let him know how things were going.

Anyhow, it's Thursday, been home a week - my sweet mom is still holding onto life, the doctors don't know how, but God just wasn't finished with her just yet. I told my family I wasn't planning any more trips to Ca. right now!! We did have a wonderful time and I am so thankful we got to see all we did, California is such a beautiful state, I do want to come back, we didn't get to Yosemite, we'll do it next time. Sorry this post was so long!!

Jfawp, A lovely report. I am very sorry though to hear about your Mum.

I have made a booking with the Hotel Rex for January so was very interested to hear your commeents. We have ordered a King room with sofa bed for our son. Do you think the rooms are big enough for three people to share? We have requested the largest King room, but... no guarantees. Our other choice is the Stanford Court. Does the location of the Rex win over the Nob Hill area. What floor were you on? We are also going to Carmel, when you say the dinner was rowdy, in what way? Just heaps of people making noise? Were you just unlucky or would this be a regular occurence? We haven't decided on accommodation for Carmel yet, I guess you would recommend the Mission Ranch as you stayed a while.

thanks for the report, and look after yourself during this difficult time.
Schnauzer

Schnauzer - I think any of the smaller hotels will have smaller rooms than the large chain hotels, but the service is so wonderful. We stayed in a room similar to what you described - king suite with soaf (bed) We wouldn't have had any problem putting a child in this room with us. We were on the 6th floor, very quite, never any noise (street or otherwise). I would not want to stay on Nob Hill. It seemed to me the farther you went from Union Square up towards Nob Hill, the steeper the hills got. It looked to me like on Nob Hill there wasn't much around other than the hotels, and a few eating places, a previous post when I was looking talked about how very steep it was walking up to the hotels, and down from them, in other words, if you are lower down, there are shops, plenty of restaurants, etc. that you could walk to, as opposed to having to get a ride.
I'll try to clear that up more if I can, or I'm sure others can answer better.
As far as Misison Ranch - we were only scheduled for 2 nights there, but liked it so well, stayed a third. They had a lovely cont. breakfast and their rates where really good. As far as the restuarant, they had a piano bar. One guest told me when we were getting ready to leave that if you ate there before 8 at night it wasn't so loud. No one out of hand, just lots of drinking (which we don't), very, very loud talking, singing, out talking the next table, piano, etc., that type of things. It was upscale, but not our type of atmosphere. THe person who told me about before 8:00 said a lot of the "local" ate there at night, but it wasn't rowdy to the point of being disturbing when we were in our room. If you have any questions, give me your email address, and I'll be glad to let you know more. Thanks for asking about my mom, she's really doing very poorly, I had a pity party last night, cause I know it's just a matter of time. Thanks

I'm sorry, but I had to chuckle at your phonetic spelling - Salsalido. Just like it sounds!

Glad you had a good trip to our beautiful state.

Sorry, I really did know how to spell Salsalido, just typo, I had to do this in bits and pieces, no time to be on computer, I usually proof what I type, but been in a hurry to get to the hospital, oh well - probably find a few more in there!! I loved your state, hope to come back some day

Salsalido...Isn't that an Italian beach only available to Mexican tourists?