A Weekend in the City, with More to Come
January 30, 2015
V had Monday off, and I'm retired, so we skipped out to San Francisco this weekend. Checked into the Marriot Marquis on Market St. at Fourth (usually we stay at the Palace, but either they've raised their room rates, or they were sold out of reasonably priced rooms). We got a lovely, quiet ninth floor room facing away from noisy Market street. It was plenty big enough. We went to the ACT performance of Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink, another play of his in which the past and the present overlap (like Arcadia). The man can do no wrong, in my opinion; he is quite likely the greatest living English-language playwright. We walked over to the Embarcadero for dinner at The Plant Organic Cafe. All the food is excellent; I had the duck. Don't miss the vegan cheesecake (they use coconut milk). We walked over to the Embarcadero Cinema for a showing of A Most Violent Year, then back to our hotel. We wracked up 16,000 steps.
Monday morning we set out via the F streetcar line to Fisherman's Wharf. I love the F line; it runs classic PCC streetcars painted in the livery of various American streetcar companies of the past. There is one Milan streetcar which I've never ridden; someday I might just hang around until it comes by so I can ride it. We had a hearty breakfast at the Blue Mermaid, which is right next to the lovely Argonaut boutique hotel on the edge of Aquatic Park. Pricey, but we might stay there sometime. Usually, when we walk in the city, we walk the Embarcadero; this time we walked past Aquatic Park, up the hill, to a park on the hill above Ft. Mason. Quiet, great sea breeze, lovely views. We will do this walk again! We grabbed a cable car back to the hotel, and saw several small restaurants we may try someday. We had lunch with our daughter M, who works downtown. We ate at Annabel's, a funky eatery across from the Marriott. Great food, and a stunningly interesting looking hostess, who towered over me--and I'm 6 feet tall! Monday was also a 16,000 step day. In short, a magical two-day excursion to SF... and we didn't even get a ticket for parking overnight at BART!