After returning from Alcatraz, we walked to North Beach, the traditionally Italian neighborhood near Fisherman's Wharf. We ate a giant fresh pasta lunch at a little place called Cafeterata (or something like that). They had a sign out front that proclaimed "Tony Bennett says Cafeterata (or something like that) has the best homemade pasta." With such a recommendation, how could we go anywhere else. We'll have to say Tony was right. Great fresh pasta, great sauce, and great bread. From North Beach we caught a bus to do some more neighborhood exploring. The coolest thing about it was that the bus got caught in rush hour traffic in Chinatown, so we got to view everyone shopping and the shops and stuff. We'd hoped to walk around down there, but that's another thing for the next trip.
We did some shopping in the Mission District at some shops we'd seen the day before. Then we did a major hike to try to catch a bus that would take us back to the hostel. Unfortunately, Jennifer the Jeography Jenius had incorrectly read the transit map. So instead of walking two blocks to catch the bus that would deliver us to our doorstep, we walked about 15 blocks to Castro Street, much of the walk up some of San Francisco's famous hills. Of course, we had heard of these steep streets, but we didn't realize they are everywhere. Needless to say, it was a very good workout, and the cartographic miscue did give us the opportunity to see a lot of great houses. San Francisco's residential areas are very high density. Not a lot of yards, or at least big ones, in this city. When you look at the city from a distance, all you see are houses. White and pastel, rising up the hills from the water - very Mediterranean. Many of the houses and apartment buildings have that characteristic San Francisco style - lots of bay windows hanging over the sidewalks. Another cool thing is that there are very few tall apartment buildings, so everything sort of blends in.
Missy says, "Housepainter's delight!"