San Francisco 2

We awoke to yet another brilliant winter's day and immediately headed to Fisherman's wharf for breakfast at a swank restaurant. This, we found, was located next door to some feisty occupants of Pier 39, a troupe of sea lions, if that is the appropriate collective noun. They included big bulls, females, and their young. Max was entranced by their aggression - quite a bit of sparring was going on - and loved the statue to the sea lions which we found, for which he immediately found an unintended use.

Next, we strolled of in search of Lombard Street, which has what is billed the world's most crooked street. The billing might be right judging by the next photo. Part of SF's charm lies in its steep hills over which a grid-iron street pattern is superimposed. This means that a lot of streets have crazy angles like this one down which cars zig-zag to people's homes. The residential densities shown on these photos are very high by US standards and the city is not short of money, which makes for many lovely old houses. The next picture shows Lombard street from the top and you can readily see the city's hilly nature.

At the top of the zig-zag we caught one of these! Actually, it was precisely this one. The famous cable cars were designed to provide public transport on not quite vertical streets - but nevertheless quite steep streets. As you can see, people love to hand off the edge of the cars and Max decided to replace one of the guys seen here all the way to the terminal - several kilometers away! I was terrified for him, but no amount of instructions would shift him. Of course, even Ella - now aged 8 months - was fascinated by the experience.

We took a different route on the way back, and even I rode the outside filming as we went. Part-way, we alighted to walk to the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. At this precise moment, SF's famous fog descended and blanketed everything in a dull white colour - not good conditions for observing the city from on high. Fortunately, it hung around for perhaps half an hour before beginning to clear. The next but one photo shows the tower rising above a very pleasant, but steep, neighbourhood. On the walk up, I couldn't resist the street sign explaining why population growth in developed countries is tanking

And from the top of the lovely tower the view was stunning once the fog cleared! For example, have a look at the CBD and the picture of the Ferry terminal.

We ended up walking to the latter which houses up-market shops several of which specialise in high class chocolates - our target. All up it was a great but tiring day. We jumped in the car and headed back to Santa Clara for a well-earned rest,

AS