I like to travel, me and my husband like to try and get to a new place every year. So far this year I've been very lucky to have been able to travel to four places that I've never been to before (you already know that one of them was Paris for my birthday).Paul had already been to two of the places previously with friends, but because id never been to them he didn't mind revisiting them.

The first place we visited on our trip, was San Francisco. We were going to be spending four days here before moving off to another destination.

Day 1 -

We left London at 11.50 am, our flight was about 10 and a half hours long. I never manage to sleep on planes, I don't know how people can do it. We arrived in San Francisco at 3.10pm, which UK time was 11.10pm. That's quite difficult to get your head around as your tired and want to go to sleep but its day light and mid afternoon in your new location. After we had waited for what seemed forever to get through pass port control, again never an easy wait when your tired and in need of a coffee. We finally got to collect our bags and head off to find the Bart train that would get us as close to our hotel as possible. Id read online that we could get the Pittsburgh train from the airport to Powell St which is the street our hotel was located on for about $9 each, cheaper than getting a taxi. The journey took about half an hour and the hotel was only a couple of blocks from the the station

We checked into our hotel which was the Sir Francis drake hotel. If your thinking of taking a trip to San Fran i would definitely recommend this hotel as its close to everything. After the long wait at pass port control it was about half 5 when we finally got into our room, so we decided to just power through rather than taking a nap. This way we could adjust to the time zone better, however this meant we needed coffee. Another plus to this hotel though is that there is a Starbucks located just on the side of the hotel, very needed for sleep deprived travellers. The room itself is decorated in a really cool old fashioned way. The bathroom was a bit on the small side but still big enough to do what you need to do. 

After we checked in and got our coffees we unpacked our suitcases, got changed and then took a walk around union square. Union square is full of shops and this is where i found the Gwen Stefani blush palette on offer. We were also in Macy's for our first evening meal. I knew that located on the 8th floor was the cheesecake factory! Of course me loving food, needed to eat here.The last time i came to a cheesecake factory was when we went to Vegas and I made the mistake of getting a far too large main meal which meant i had to share a cheesecake. Share dessert! Me, never. So this time i chose wisely and had a whole cheesecake to myself.

Day 2 -

This was our first proper day in San Fran, we were so excited. After filling our faces with pancakes for breakfast we took a walk down to hire a bike from a place called basically free bikes. It took us about 25 mins to walk to the bike place from our hotel which wasn't bad, there was some steep hills but nothing we couldn't handle. Our bikes cost us $32 each to hire for the day, but we got given this back as a voucher to spend in there sports shop if we wished. This is where the basically free part comes into it. There was no hidden catch to this, as you will have seen from my holiday fashion haul, i got to spend my voucher. We thought it would be a really cool experience to hire bikes and ride them over the golden gate bridge. There is plenty of places to hire bikes from and lots of different company's, but from looking at reviews on trip adviser we decided on the one we went with.

It was pretty easy to find our way from the hire shop to the golden gate bridge, you basically just follow the signs. Most of the route was flat and easy up to the bridge, of course there was a couple of steep hills but we were in San Fran. I personally found it quite difficult to ride up these hills so i just got off my bike and walked up them. Once we got to the bridge the view was amazing, we managed to catch it on a really good day where there was no fog. Its advised to go before lunch time so that you don't get the fog ruining your view. When we went it was such a lovely sunny day, there was a nice breeze blowing at us as we rode over the bridge. it was just one of those things that I'm so glad we did, it was an amazing experience!. 

Once we got over the bridge it was all down hill to the town Sausalito, so that was fun. I barely had to peddle with all the hills we went down. Sausalito is a really pretty place, its much warmer than San Fran, has lots of boutique style shops and lots of food places. We stopped and had a well deserved ice cream and a stroll around before getting on the ferry to take us back. There is no way that we wanted to walk back up all those hills. Its advised to buy your ferry tickets before the the boat arrives as there can be a big queue and you can end up missing the boat and having to wait another hour before the next one arrives. The boat drops you back off at one of the piers in fisherman's wharf, which is about 5 minute bike ride from where we rented our bikes. 

Day 3 -

San Francisco is also well known for their cable cars. They are quite expensive to ride on all the time as they are $7 a ride, but its well worth it just for at least one time to get the experience of being on one. There is a stop right outside our hotel but we decided to walk the 5-10 minutes back down to the train station where the turning point is for the cable cars. This is the end of the line and beginning point for the Powell-Hyde and Powell- Mason cable cars, which means that everyone has to get off. Which means the cable cars are empty, giving you a good chance of being able to get to sit on the seats where you can swing your legs out or if you want grab a pole and lean out. You will most likely find that there is a queue of people waiting here for the cable cars but you wont be waiting long as they come very quickly. 

We decided that we would try the cable cars our on the way to famous crooked Lombard St. There is two cable cars that come and turn at this point, both will take you to the famous St, but one will drop you at the top and one will drop you at the bottom. We ended up on the one that dropped us at the top which was cool as we walked down the steps to the bottom and got some nice photos along the way. This is also the day that we had prebooked Alcatraz, its best to prebook it a month before you go as it can get booked up fast. With the boat leaving from pier 39 we decided that we would spend the rest of our day at the fisherman's wharf area. So we walked from Lombard St to the fisherman's wharf, which took about 15mins. 

Fisherman's wharf is a really pretty area, there is lots of cute shops to look around, plenty of chocolate shops to drool over and there is a really cool arcade museum that has really old arcade games and you can go and play on them. We also went and saw the sea lions which are right at the back of fisherman's wharf. I couldn't believe how many of them were there, all playing with each other and being very vocal.