Another full day was all planned out for us but with a lot less walking so we headed off out about 10:30 and got the streetcar F line to the Market Street Railway Museum. It sounds like a large place but it's really only small museum but we spent nearly an hour in there looking at the old photos taken around the city in years gone by and reading the history of the streetcars and cable cars, plus it was free to go in.
By the time we had come out of there, it was lunchtime so as it was only a short walk across the road to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, it was time to revisit the pie shop in there for lunch. It was a lot warmer today too so sat out the on the Bay, very pleasant indeed with a pie and a drink. The San Francisco Ferry Building is the main terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay, and has a food hall, and also has offices. On top of the building is a 245-foot tall clock tower, with four clock dials, each 22 feet in diameter, which can be seen from Market Street, the main thoroughfare of the city. Designed by American architect A. Page Brown in the Beaux Arts style in 1892, the ferry building was completed in 1898. At its opening, it was the largest project undertaken in the city up to that time. Brown designed the clock tower after the 12th-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain, and the entire length of the building on both frontages is based on an arched arcade. With decreased use after bridges were constructed across the bay to carry railroad traffic, in the 1950s, the building was adapted for office use and its public spaces were broken up in an unsympathetic manner. In 2002, a restoration and renovation were undertaken to redevelop the entire complex. The 660-foot long Great Nave was restored, together with its height and materials. A marketplace was created for the ground floor, the former baggage handling area. The second and third floors were adapted for office and Port Commission use. During daylight, on every full and half-hour, the clock bell chimes portions of the Westminster Quarters. The ferry terminal is a designated San Francisco landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with that we hopped back on the F line for the short ride down to the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39.
It must be twenty years since I last went to an aquarium so didn't really know what to expect but for $17 we thought we'd give it a try. It not a huge place but it was interesting walking through the glass tunnels on the lower level and seeing giant fish and sharks swimming over your head is enough to put you off swimming around there as everything in the aquarium was caught in the Bay or just off the west coast, it's frightening when you see the size of some of the monsters that are in there and could be out there with you while you a taking a dip. They also have what called a touch pool on the upper floor where you can stroke the manta rays as well but they were having their lunch at the time so we just had to make do with the starfish and sea urchins. They have a couple of otter's as well but they had nodded off in all the excitement. After spending about 2 hours in there we had seen everything, so we came out and had a sit down on the benches out the back on the upper level overlooking the marina, the Grand Princess Cruise ship was docked just a couple piers further up and you got a good view of it from here. I thought it would have taken longer get around the aquarium so had to do some quick thinking on where to go next that wasn't too far away so it was time for a walk around the upper level on Pier 39 and look in the gift shops at all the shiny things they had, by then it was about 2pm so grabbed a couple of bottles of drink and headed out of the pier to the bus stop just outside and caught the muni number 39 bus up to Coit Tower.
Coit Tower, also known as the Lillian Coit Memorial Tower, is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city, at her death in 1929 Coit left one-third of her estate to the city for civic beautification. The tower was proposed in 1931 as an appropriate use of Coit's gift. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008. The Art Deco tower, built of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard, with fresco murals by 27 different on-site artists and their numerous assistants, plus two additional paintings installed after creation off-site. Although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental. Unfortunately, the tower was closed at the moment until spring 2014 for repairs but you get some spectacular views from the car park across three sides of the city, from the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay and finally Oakland. There's supposed to be a large flock of green parrots up there but I didn't see any. As the pathways are very steep round there I left Jane on a bench and went for a look round Pioneer park that surrounds the tower, from here you could see the Transamerica Pyramid and both parts of the Bay/Oakland Bridge, it was like every few feet you walked you got another amazing view of a different part of the city and with clear blue skies on a what was a very warm day it was idyllic up there. After taking lots of photographs it was time to go and collect Jane of the bench and get the bus back down again, that was a bit of a hair-raising ride I can tell you, I've never seen a bus go up or down hills that are so steep.
We ended back at pier 39 again about 20 minutes later then walked over to the F line street car stop where we ended up waiting about 15 minutes for one to turn up. As it was around 4:30 now, when it did arrive it was already packed even though it had only started from a few stops away, we both managed to squeeze on but after a few more stops it was starting to get a bit of a tight fit on there. There doesn't seem to be any limit on how many you can get on one of these things, they just keep packing them on till there is physically no more room to get on, only then is it full. Is a good job everybody seems to get off at the same place. So back to the hotel now to eat some freshly made sandwiches we got from the shop across the road from the hotel and then it was time for a bit of TV and a nap. I woke a couple of hours later and thought sod it I'll go out for a walk for a bit plus I needed to get some beer. I passed where the cable cars turn round and there was hardly anybody waiting so I decided to go and have another ride on one down to Fisherman's Wharf again and have a look at what is like a night down there, turns out it still looks like Blackpool even at night so got back on the next cable car back to Market Street and went in the pub for a swift couple of beers before going to booze shop.
