19 Apr San Francisco: The City By The Bay

San Francisco is one of my favorite west coast cities–we visited a few years ago, and with such a great vibe and so much to do, I would love to visit again, sooner rather than later. My favorite experiences in the San Francisco area were visiting the John Muir Woods and Alcatraz Island.

We took a day tour to the John Muir Woods–I was in awe being surrounded by the towering trees–you feel so tiny standing next to them and the entire are is breathtakingly beautiful. On our way back into the city we had a short stop in Sausalito; however, our bus got stuck behind a car accident which put us behind schedule and shortened our time in the small city across the bay. After deciding that we wanted to spend more time in the cute town of Sausalito, we decided to ditch the remainder of the tour and walk back into San Francisco by crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. I am so glad we decided to do this–not only did we have extra time in Sausalito to explore, we got to walk across the bridge as well–something I’ve always wanted to do. To me, this entire day was the highlight of our trip. Taking a glimpse of the gigantic trees in John Muir Woods, heading to Sausalito for a great meal and exploring and then finishing it off with walking across the Golden Gate Bridge made for a great day, especially because we had some foggy weather; it was cool to look up and see parts of the bridge engulfed in fog.

The other activity that I was super excited about was visiting Alcatraz Island–I’m not sure why, but “The Rock” has always intrigued me, so much so that I actually did a report on it when I was younger! I can be a huge dork, I know. Anyways, it was interesting to hear the stories and walk around envisioning what went on there in the past, especially when thinking about the riot and seeing the exact places the historic events took place. I always imagined the island as strictly a prison, but I didn’t realize how much of the island was housing, gardens and whatnot for the families of the prison guards. It seems like such a strange place to grow up; I can’t quite decide if I think it would have been slightly entertaining or boring to live there, but I definitely enjoyed exploring the island for the afternoon.

Without further ado, here are a few of my favorite San Francisco photos for this weeks #FriFotos theme West:

If you would like to see more of our San Francisco photos, check out our photo album!