Karl the Fog clearly fancied an outing today.
The temperature had dropped, the sky had taken on that soft grey San Francisco glow, and every now and then Karl drifted in like a bored cat deciding whether or not to sit on your lap. Someone, at some point, thought it would be a good idea to give the city's fog a name — and because this is San Francisco, the idea stuck. Karl even has his own Twitter account, because apparently the fog has a more active social life than most people.
The Presidio
We set off a little later than usual, around 9 a.m., partly because I'd had to reshuffle the day's plans after discovering that Fort Point only opens from Friday to Sunday. Whether the opening times had changed since I planned the trip or I'd simply got myself muddled is open to debate. Both are entirely possible. As it turned out, the change worked in our favour.
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| I like The Pait Work |
Just down the road from the hotel, we caught the free PresidiGo shuttle, which takes a less-travelled route out of the city. It only makes a handful of stops before reaching the Presidio, and within a few minutes the skyscrapers and traffic begin to give way to trees, open spaces, and some of the best views in San Francisco.
The Presidio has had a long and varied history. For more than two centuries it served as a military post under the Spanish, then the Mexicans, and finally the United States Army. Military operations officially ended in 1994, bringing 219 years of service to a close, and the area became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Today it's an enormous park criss-crossed by miles of walking trails, woodlands, historic buildings, and viewpoints. You can walk all the way to Lands End and the Pacific Ocean if you're feeling energetic.
There are even coyotes living here. Apparently they're usually quite shy. Still, I couldn't help wondering how fast Jane could wheel if one suddenly decided otherwise.
One of the best things about the Presidio is its position high above the bay. Almost everywhere you look there's another spectacular view waiting for you. The Golden Gate Bridge stretches across the water, Alcatraz sits out in the bay, Angel Island rises behind it, and beyond that lie the hills of Marin County, along with places like Sausalito and Tiburon. On a clear day the views are magnificent. Today, however, Karl had other ideas.
One minute the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge towers were disappearing into the fog, and the next the bridge deck itself had vanished while the towers poked through the cloud like giant red fingers pointing into the sky. The scene seemed to change every few minutes, making it impossible to stop looking. Sometimes San Francisco's best views aren't the ones you can see clearly.
Yo, Yoda!
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| Yoda And I |
Our first stop in the Presidio was the Yoda Fountain, tucked away just outside the Lucasfilm offices at the Letterman Digital Arts Center. It's a surprisingly peaceful little courtyard, with trees, benches, and the gentle sound of water surrounding a bronze Yoda perched on top of a plinth as though he's about to dispense some cryptic piece of life advice. Given that it was May the 4th — as in May the Force be with you — it felt only right to pay a visit.
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| Yoda Will reveal All |
The fountain had also become an unofficial memorial to Carrie Fisher following her death a few months earlier. By the time we arrived, most of the flowers, cards, and tributes had disappeared, but there were still a few reminders left behind. It was nice to see that people hadn't forgotten her.
Even though I've never properly watched the Star Wars films — beyond catching the odd scene on television and watching the Family Guy spoof — I still appreciated the significance of the place. There are so many films, spin-offs, sequels, prequels, and assorted Skywalkers these days that I honestly wouldn't have a clue who was related to whom. I'd need a flowchart.
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| My Hero |
Just behind the fountain is the Lucasfilm lobby, which doubles as a small museum showcasing original costumes, props, and memorabilia from the films. Best of all, it's completely free to wander around. You only really need twenty minutes or so, although most people seem to spend that time photographing absolutely everything in sight. Stormtroopers, droids, lightsabers, Jedi robes — it's all there, quietly guarded by a receptionist who has almost certainly witnessed every Star Wars pose known to humanity.
Even for someone who isn't a huge fan, it's a fun little stop. And on May the 4th, it felt like exactly the right place to begin the day.
Military Marvels & Tea
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| Inside The Visitors Centre |
From the Yoda Fountain, we carried on uphill, walking the half-mile to the newly opened Presidio Visitors Centre. It's a bright, modern space filled with interactive displays explaining the area's military history, wildlife, and the huge restoration projects that have transformed the Presidio over the years. One exhibit focused on the return of coyotes to the park. Apparently, the reintroduction programme has been so successful that there are now around fourteen breeding pairs living here, with sightings reported as far away as Telegraph Hill. Wildlife, it seems, has very little interest in respecting the boundaries humans draw on maps.
It was fascinating stuff, although my own wildlife survival strategy remained unchanged: Make sure I can outrun Jane
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| The Presidio Cover A Large Area |
The Visitors Centre overlooks what was once the main parade ground, and many of the old officers' houses surrounding it have been transformed into very desirable homes. Their immaculate porches and spectacular bay views probably don't come cheap. From up here, the scenery stretches for miles, with the colours shifting between blue and grey depending entirely on Karl the Fog's mood that morning.
What really caught my eye, though, were the old coastal defence batteries scattered across the hillside below. Half-hidden amongst the trees and scrub, they looked exactly like the sort of place that sparks the imagination. They're not officially accessible, but judging by the amount of graffiti visible from a distance, plenty of people have found ways to explore them anyway.
It's exactly the kind of place I'd love to investigate — crumbling concrete, rusting metal, and layers of forgotten history slowly being reclaimed by nature. Sadly, this was very much a look-but-don't touch situation.
Just below the Presidio runs Highway 101, the road that carries traffic across the Golden Gate Bridge. For decades, this section cut a physical barrier through the landscape, but following a major redevelopment completed in 2015, much of the road now disappears into two enormous concrete tunnels designed to withstand future earthquakes.
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| First Time Seeing A Bluebird |
The long-term plan is even more ambitious. The tops of the tunnels are being transformed into parkland, reconnecting areas that had been separated for more than eighty years. When complete, visitors will be able to walk seamlessly from the Presidio down to Crissy Field without ever feeling as though they're crossing one of the busiest roads on the West Coast.
The project includes new picnic areas, nature reserves, walking paths, and even a tidal pond. They also managed to preserve the old pet cemetery, which now sits beneath a section of highway supported on stilts — a wonderfully San Franciscan compromise between progress and sentimentality.
By this point we'd earned a break, so we headed for the Transit Café for a well-deserved drink. The café itself wasn't long for this world and was due to be demolished as part of the ongoing redevelopment, but it was still doing a brisk trade when we arrived. And yes, before you ask, there was cake. I'm fairly certain it would have been rude not to.
Coins & Colma
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| Korean War Memorial |
After finishing our coffee at the café, we made our way over to the San Francisco National Cemetery, a place I'd only ever seen in films before.
It sits on a quiet hillside overlooking the bay, and even before you pass through the gates you can feel the atmosphere change. The noise of the city fades away, replaced by an almost unsettling stillness. Nothing really prepares you for the scale of it. Row upon row of white headstones stretch across the hillside in perfect lines, disappearing into the distance. Each one represents a life, a family, a story. Standing there amongst them, "a sombre experience" barely begins to describe it.
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| Just Some Of The Graves |
One thing that particularly caught my attention was the coins resting on some of the graves. I'd never come across the tradition before. One of the displays explained that each coin carries a meaning. A penny signifies a visit, while a quarter traditionally means the person leaving it was there when that individual died. It's such a small gesture, yet somehow incredibly powerful.
Standing in the sunshine, looking at a single coin resting on a headstone, made the reality of it all feel much closer. Beyond the cemetery, the bay sparkled peacefully beneath a blue-grey sky, but here the cost of history felt impossible to ignore. Perhaps that's what struck me most: the contrast. All around was beauty, tranquillity, and spectacular scenery. Yet beneath every stone lay a reminder of what had been sacrificed to make moments like this possible.
The visit also led us down an unexpected rabbit hole into San Francisco's unusual relationship with its dead. Unlike most cities, San Francisco removed almost all of its cemeteries during the early twentieth century. As the city expanded, thousands of graves were relocated south to the town of Colma, which today contains around one and a half million burials.
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Looking Out To Alcatraz
From The Cemetary |
When I looked at Colma on a satellite map while planning the trip, I genuinely couldn't believe the size of it. The cemetery stretched across the landscape. The town is often nicknamed the "City of the Dead," and with the dead outnumbering the living by roughly a thousand to one, it's not hard to see why.
Within San Francisco itself, only a handful of burial sites remain. There's the small graveyard at Mission Dolores, the pet cemetery hidden beneath the Presidio highway project, and the Columbarium — a beautiful Victorian rotunda containing around 30,000 sets of remains housed within thousands of decorative niches. I'd already seen photographs of the Columbarium while planning the trip, and it looked fascinating. Harvey Milk's memorial niche is there, along with countless others decorated with photographs, ornaments, and personal mementoes left behind by families.
We'd already pencilled it into the day's plans. Most tourists probably don't spend their holidays visiting cemeteries, but then again, we've never been particularly good at sticking to the standard itinerary.
Firefighters, Fire Engines & The Great Quake
From the cemetery, we made our way back to the Transit Café, where seemingly every bus in San Francisco eventually turns up, and caught the Number 43 to California Street for the San Francisco Fire Department Museum.
This was somewhere we'd been trying to visit for years. The museum is only open from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m., Thursday to Sunday, and because it's staffed entirely by volunteer firefighters, there's always a chance it might not open at all if something more important requires their attention. The official advice is to phone ahead.
We didn't. Instead, we took the traditional traveller's approach of turning up and hoping for the best. Fortunately, nowhere appeared to be on fire that afternoon.
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| Fire Truck From The '30s |
The museum sits right next door to an active fire station, making it fairly easy to find. Inside, it's not especially large, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in character. The collection traces the history of firefighting in San Francisco, from horse-drawn fire engines and steam-powered pumps through to the city's first motorised fire appliances.
One of the volunteers kindly offered us a guided tour, but we're both wanderers rather than tour followers. We like reading things at our own pace, lingering over the bits that interest us and quietly skipping over anything that doesn't.
What really stayed with me was the story of the 1906 earthquake and the devastating fires that followed.
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| A Nozzel from 1906 |
Most people remember the earthquake, but it was the fires that caused much of the destruction. Around 500 city blocks were lost, and the biggest challenge facing firefighters wasn't the flames themselves — it was the complete lack of water. The earthquake had ruptured most of the city's water mains, leaving crews with little or nothing to fight the fires with.
One small exception became legendary.
The Golden Fire Hydrant was one of the few hydrants that continued to function during the disaster, helping firefighters save part of the Mission District. To this day, an annual ceremony is still held there to commemorate its role in the city's survival.
We also learned about Lotta's Fountain on Market Street, which became a gathering point after the earthquake. People pinned messages there in the hope of finding missing relatives and friends amidst the chaos. It's one thing reading statistics; it's another imagining thousands of frightened people desperately searching for loved ones.
The disaster changed San Francisco forever.
A large reservoir was constructed near Twin Peaks, and an extensive network of emergency cisterns was installed beneath the city's streets. Many of them remain in use today, hidden beneath brick circles set into road junctions across the city. Most people walk or drive straight past them without a second thought, unaware they're standing above thousands of gallons of emergency water. It's a quiet reminder that San Francisco learned its lessons the hard way.
No one knows exactly how many people died in the earthquake and the fires that followed, but estimates are generally around three thousand. Standing amongst the old fire engines and equipment, it's difficult to fully comprehend the scale of what the city endured.
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| Some Of The Earliest Equipment |
The museum itself only takes about an hour to explore, but it's well worth the visit. Entry is free, although they suggest a five-dollar donation. Given that the museum is run by volunteers, many of whom are active or retired firefighters giving up their own time, it felt like money well spent. We each put some money in the donation box and bought a ten-dollar badge for good measure.
In the entire time we were there, we were the only visitors.
That gave us the chance to chat with the two firefighters behind the desk, who were more than happy to answer questions and share stories. It made the experience feel much more personal than simply reading information boards.
It's a shame more people don't find their way here. But then again, most visitors are busy queueing for the city's headline attractions while little gems like this quietly wait around the corner.
Their loss, really.
No Show Bus
From the Firefighters Museum, it was only a short walk up the road to the next bus stop, where we planned to catch a bus out to the San Francisco Columbarium.
I'd been looking forward to this one. The Columbarium is a beautifully restored Victorian building dating from 1897 and houses the remains of thousands of people. It's one of those unusual places that most tourists never visit, which naturally made it far more appealing to us.
Unfortunately, the bus had other ideas.
We waited.
And waited.
And then waited a bit more.
After twenty minutes, the only buses that appeared were express services that weren't any use to us whatsoever. There was no real-time information screen at the stop, no internet connection on the phone, and the clock was ticking steadily towards closing time. The Columbarium shuts at four o'clock, and with every passing minute it was becoming increasingly obvious that we weren't going to make it.
Reluctantly, we admitted defeat.
It was a shame because we'd both wanted to see it, but travel plans have a habit of unravelling occasionally. Sometimes the deciding factor isn't a major disaster or a cancelled flight — it's simply a bus that never arrives.
Fortunately, we already had plans for the evening, so we crossed the road and caught the Number 38 back towards the city centre.
The revised plan was straightforward: head to Jimmy John's in the Crocker Galleria, grab one of their excellent sandwiches, then retreat to the hotel for a well-earned rest before heading back out later. Without a break, this was shaping up to be a very long day.
The Crocker Galleria sits in the heart of the Financial District and is one of those places that's easy to miss unless you know it's there. Inside is a collection of cafés, bakeries, sandwich shops, and restaurants serving just about every type of food imaginable. There's even a rooftop terrace where office workers escape with their lunches on sunny days.
On a previous visit we'd made the mistake of arriving at lunchtime.
Never again.
The place had been packed shoulder-to-shoulder with hungry office workers, all attempting to buy food at exactly the same moment. It felt less like a shopping arcade and more like an evacuation drill.
This time, however, it was blissfully quiet.
Most of the shops were already closing, and the crowds had long since disappeared. Without hundreds of people rushing around, you can actually appreciate the building itself: the elegant ironwork, the glass-vaulted roof overhead, and the way the afternoon light filters through the atrium. It felt like an entirely different place.
By the time we finished our sandwiches and left, it was around half past four, leaving us with only a short walk back to the hotel.
Once inside, we demolished the food, collapsed onto the bed, and treated ourselves to an hour's nap. After the day we'd had, it felt less like a luxury and more like a medical necessity.
May the 4th (And Drink) Be With You
Around half past five, we set off once again and caught the F-Line streetcar for the fifteen-minute ride to the Exploratorium. We'd deliberately planned this for a Thursday evening because it's the only night of the week when the museum opens exclusively for adults. As luck would have it, we'd also timed our visit perfectly for May the 4th.
The Exploratorium is one of those places that's impossible not to enjoy. It's a huge hands-on science museum packed with interactive exhibits designed to explain everything from light and sound to human perception and engineering. It's also exactly the sort of place that is normally full of excited children enthusiastically pressing every button they can find.
If there's an opportunity to experience somewhere without hundreds of screaming kids running around, we'll usually take it.
Thankfully, tonight we could.
The adults-only evenings run from six until ten and cost just fifteen dollars each, roughly half the normal admission price. Throw in a Star Wars theme night, fancy dress costumes, live music, and an R2-D2 unit wandering around getting under people's feet, and it was already looking like one of the highlights of the trip.
Before we even made it through the doors, we found ourselves watching a band performing outside dressed as various Star Wars characters. Quite who some of them were supposed to be was beyond me, but we recognised enough of the music to stand there grinning like a pair of idiots for several minutes. They were genuinely good fun and set the tone for the evening perfectly.
We'd heard that Americans take May the 4th seriously.
We were not prepared for quite how seriously.
By the time we got inside, the place was already buzzing. Lights flashed, music played, and people wandered between exhibits carrying drinks from the bars scattered throughout the museum. Many appeared to have made an enthusiastic start to the evening before going in at local bars outside.
There is a very specific type of chaos that occurs when slightly over-refreshed adults are given unrestricted access to a building full of hands-on science experiments. Honestly, it's magnificent.
Seeing someone attempt the simplest task while half-cut is entertainment in itself. Getting a slinky to travel up an inclined conveyor belt by controlling the speed isn’t exactly straightforward when you’re sober — never mind three drinks in. Not that we were messing about on purpose. Absolutely not. Perish the thought.
Not that we spent an unreasonable amount of time laughing at people, of course.
The exhibits themselves were excellent. Everything is designed to be touched, tested, spun, pushed, pulled, and generally experimented with. The museum covers sight, sound, motion, perception, and dozens of other scientific oddities, all presented in a way that's clever without ever becoming overly serious.
As the evening wore on, we wandered out onto the waterfront exhibits where the views across the bay were spectacular. The sun was beginning to set, the water reflected the fading light, and for a few minutes the city looked absolutely perfect.
Then Karl the Fog arrived.
One moment the evening was mild and pleasant; the next, a wall of fog rolled across the bay and the temperature dropped like someone had opened a giant refrigerator door.
San Francisco never misses an opportunity to remind visitors who's really in charge.
After a few minutes outside, we retreated back into the warmth of the museum and caught more of the band. They were playing the sort of relentlessly catchy tunes that burrow into your brain and refuse to leave.
You know the type.
The songs that seem harmless at the time but then reappear in your head at three o'clock in the morning for no apparent reason.
I strongly suspect we would both still be humming them several days later.
Two Sides Of The City
We left the Exploratorium at around half past nine and, as is tradition — and frankly, probably a legal requirement — spent a little time wandering around the gift shop before finally making our way outside.
From there, we strolled along the Embarcadero towards the Ferry Building. Karl the Fog had drifted off to bother somebody else by this point, leaving behind one of those warm, still San Francisco evenings that feel almost unfairly pleasant. The bay was calm, the lights shimmered on the water, and for a while it was just the two of us wandering along the waterfront without a care in the world.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing complicated.
Just one of those simple moments that somehow becomes a lasting memory.
It's strange to think that until relatively recently this entire stretch of waterfront sat beneath an elevated two-tier freeway. Where the F-Line streetcars trundle along today, there was once a concrete wall separating the city from the bay. The Embarcadero Freeway connected to the Bay Bridge and was supposed to continue all the way towards Highway 101 and the Golden Gate Bridge, but the project was never completed and simply stopped near Fisherman's Wharf.
Then came the 1989 earthquake.
Sections of a similar structure in Oakland collapsed, killing dozens of people, and the damaged Embarcadero Freeway was eventually demolished. In doing so, San Francisco gained something far more valuable than a road — it got its waterfront back.
Today it's difficult to imagine the area any other way.
The views of the Ferry Building, the palm-lined promenade, the historic streetcars and the crowds of people enjoying the bay all feel completely natural, as though they've always been here. From the Ferry Plaza we headed up onto Market Street and caught a bus to Walgreens to grab something for supper. By now it was approaching half past ten and we were both running on fumes, but the hotel wasn't really far enough away to justify waiting for another bus.
Even if the walk was uphill.
So we walked.
San Francisco changes character after dark.
The version you see during the day — cable cars, waterfront views and colourful Victorian houses — is still there, but at night you notice other things too. People sleeping in doorways. Tents tucked into corners. People stretched out on the pavement trying to get some rest wherever they can.
It's something that's impossible to ignore.
We like travelling in a way that lets us experience places as they really are, not just the polished postcard version, and this is part of modern San Francisco too.
The city spends huge sums trying to tackle homelessness, but the causes are complex. Housing costs, addiction, mental health struggles, decades of underinvestment in support services — they're all tangled together. Looking around, it felt less like a problem with a simple solution and more like the visible result of issues that have been building for generations.
It was a sobering contrast.
In a city famous for extraordinary wealth and innovation, there are also people with nowhere to go.
As visitors, all we could really do was observe it and reflect on it.
By the time we reached the hotel at around quarter to eleven, we were completely exhausted. Not being used to staying out that late anymore certainly didn't help.
All that remained was to collapse onto the bed with a couple of beers, some snacks, and the local news on television.
I stayed awake a little longer than I should have, updating the blog while the details of the day were still fresh. I've learned from experience that once you fall behind, catching up becomes a challenge. Days blur together, memories merge, and before long you're relying on photographs to work out whether something happened yesterday or three days ago.
At least I'd finally sorted the cameras out.
For the first time all trip, every camera, phone and gadget was operating in the same time zone, which felt like a surprisingly significant achievement.
Eventually, though, even the blog had to wait.
The city hummed quietly outside, the day finally caught up with us, and we sank into that big, comfortable hotel bed ready to do it all again tomorrow.
Refections On The Day
Today felt like one of those rare days where everything seemed to fall into place. Even the things that didn't go according to plan somehow improved the experience. From Karl the Fog drifting lazily around the Golden Gate to an evening spent celebrating Star Wars Day at the Exploratorium, San Francisco seemed determined to show us every side of its personality.
What struck me most was the city's sense of contrast. The morning took us through the Presidio, where old military history, wildlife, and spectacular bay views sit side by side. A short while later we found ourselves standing among the rows of white headstones at the National Cemetery, a place that quietly reminds you of the human cost behind so much of the history we often take for granted. The coins left on the graves stayed with me long after we left.
Throughout the day there was a recurring theme of resilience. Whether it was learning how the city recovered from the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire, or seeing how former military land has been transformed into parks and public spaces, San Francisco constantly reinvents itself while somehow holding on to its past.
The evening could not have been more different. The Exploratorium was pure fun: adults acting like oversized children, science exhibits being enthusiastically misunderstood, and R2-D2 stealing the show. It was exactly the kind of slightly ridiculous experience that makes a holiday memorable.
The walk back along the Embarcadero was one of those simple moments that often become the most treasured. The bay was calm, the city lights reflected on the water, and for a while there was nowhere we needed to be and nothing we needed to do. Just enjoying the evening together was enough.
Of course, San Francisco never lets you forget its more complicated side. Walking back through Market Street afterwards was a reminder that alongside the wealth, beauty, and famous landmarks are real social problems that remain impossible to ignore. It didn't spoil the day, but it did add perspective.
By the time we reached the hotel we were exhausted, but it was the satisfying kind of tiredness that comes from a day well spent. Looking back, this wasn't really a day about ticking attractions off a list. It was about experiencing the city in all its different forms: playful, historic, beautiful, complicated, and endlessly fascinating.
Days like this are why we keep coming back.
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