On Thursday morning we had breakfast with Matt at Tartine Bakery, famous in SF. We had a very good almond croissant and a good-but-not-great ham & cheese croissant. Maybe it was because it was overhyped, but I prefer Besalu in Seattle. That's not to say that Tartine wasn't good, just not mind-blowing as I had been led to believe.
We enjoyed our croissants and coffee in Dolores Park, which was worlds away from what I have been told it's like on weekends. No one tried to sell us marijuana truffles and we easily found a spot to spread our blanket on the hill.
After eating, we set off on a somewhat epic tour of SF neighborhoods. First we walked around Noe Valley, which was very cute and, true-to-hype, had many strollers. We walked through the Castro and then went to see the Painted Ladies on Steiner Street. The park across from them was under renovation, and honestly I saw more beautiful houses in SF (not to say they weren't very pretty). We opined over how annoying it must be to live in them and have tourists photographing your house every day.
After all this, we made our way to Coit Tower, which we did not summit. We did, however, climb part of both the Filbert and the Greenwich steps, both of which were beautiful old weather-worn stairs surrounded by dense foliage. The flora of SF continually amazed me. Unfortunately, we did not run across any parrots.
Thursday night, we went on the "night tour" of Alcatraz, which departed at 6:30pm and left the island shortly after sunset (thus the quotes around "night.") At $40 a pop, I believe this was well worth it. The audio tour was very interesting, and the prison itself appealed to my morbid curiosity. I was sad the hospital was closed, and I may actually consider returning in the future just to see it when it opens.
