And so today is our last full day here, Jane wants to go round the shops and start packing and I want a "ME DAY”, again to visit some harder to get to places, what a brilliant day this turned out to be. First of all it was a walk up through Union Square to catch the number 30 for the 15 minute ride down to Washington Square Park, from here you are at the bottom end of little Italy so there plenty of places to grab a large coffee and sit in the park for a while admiring the old " painted lady houses" and the church of Saints Peter and Paul that is a across the road from here and just wander around the side streets looking in some of shops that you never see anywhere else. From here you get some excellent views up to Coit Tower and the surrounding roads that go up the steepest hills I've ever seen, I'm surprised most of the cars make it up the hills let alone the buses.
After spending about an hour and a half round there it was time to get on the bus, it was still going to be a long walk when I got off at the Palace of Fine Arts where we went a few days before but that was the nearest stop to Fort Point which is underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, if you get the bus to the top of the bridge the walk down is even further so after spending the best part of an hour walking along Golden Gate Promenade on a lovely warm clear day I finally arrived at Fort Point. During the War of 1812, the British landed in the Chesapeake Bay and marched straight into the nation’s capital. To prevent future embarrassments, President Madison ordered a new system of forts (known as the Third System) to guard the nation’s seaports. Completed in 1861 at a cost of $2.8 million, Fort Point was the only “Third System” fort built on the Pacific Coast. During the Civil War, 140 soldiers manned Fort Point, which was armed with 65 heavy artillery cannons, four flank howitzers, and five coehorn and six siege mortars. Although Confederate forces never attacked the fort, its walls could have theoretically withstood the impact of 10,000 cannonballs
before giving way. However, the invention of rifled cannons—capable of breaching brick walls—rendered the structure vulnerable. After the Civil War, Fort Point was intermittently garrisoned and saw its last active duty in World War II. It’s very similar to the forts round where we live but a lot bigger, it always amazes me how these places were constructed in the first place, is free go in and there are a few exhibits in the old officer's quarters. Spread over four floors and being directly under the Golden Gate Bridge you get a different perspective of the bridge. When you get out onto the very top floor there are some brilliant views across the bay. The only downside to being here was that even though it was 20 degrees or so on the walk up it must have only been about 8 degrees inside, after spending two or three hours in there I was absolutely frozen so it was time to walk back along the shore from the fort and watch the sea lions swimming out in the bay.
It was going to be a long walk back to the bus stop so it was time to go in the aptly named Warming Huts about halfway back to grab a coffee, it’s a shame there is no seats inside so had to find a spot in the sun to sit and warm up while admiring the view over the Bay on a day with no wind. It seemed to be a lot further walking back but after about an hour I made it to the bus stop. By now the traffic had come to a standstill around most parts of this area so rather than sit on the bus I thought it would be quicker to get on one of the cable cars instead, not sure if it was any better doing it that way as the queue massive so had to walk up a couple of stops and get on there but once I was on it I was back near the hotel in about 20 minutes so dropped into the pub for a well-earned sit down with a couple beers. Jane had had a good day going round the shops, when I got back it was time for a sleep for an hour or so, by the time I woke up it was around 9.30 and we were both hungry, time for a trip up to uncle Vito's again for a large pizza between us then it was time for bed as tomorrow we were heading back home and that was going to be a very long day.
