We’re off again on our travels but this time without the van.
During lockdown I got my DNA done and through that discovered that I have cousins in America. My grandfather came to London from the Crimea in the 1890s with his father and two brothers. In 1907 one brother (my great uncle) went to America with his wife and four children. The two sides of the family lost touch but these cousins are his descendants. Some live in New York and another in Los Angeles. So we’re travelling to the USA to meet them.
We’re away for a month, staying first in New York, then Los Angeles, then we’re renting a motorhome to have a leisurely drive up the Pacific Highway and finally staying in San Francisco.
Wow what an adventure!!
My grandfather IsaacHis brother Davis who went to America
We’ve come to the end of our American trip. It’s been fantastic. Meeting our new American family in New York and Los Angeles. Doing and seeing so much. Here’s a selection.
Our Los Angeles family told us we really must visit Lombard Avenue while in San Francisco, so we duly did. It is described as “the world’s most twisty road”. Not sure about that but it is a short, steep and very wiggly road lined with colourful flowers, including 2000 hydrangeas. Cars are continually driving up it, tourists with cameras peering out of the windows. We chose to walk down the steps at the side. It was very pretty and once again we had some lovely views of San Francisco.
After delicious meal at the Grove restaurant on 3rd Street – one of several we had there during our stay – we went to a lovely old theatre, Orpheum Theatre which features a vaulted ceiling and a beautiful façade, apparently inspired by a 12th century cathedral. There we saw a really good musical called Company which had previously been on in the West End in London. It was directed by Marianne Elliot and the acting was superb.
We took a bus to Golden Gate Park, which is enormous, we could easily have spent a day there. We walked through a beautiful rose garden and a Japanese tea garden and also visited a really interesting art gallery, the De Young museum. Most of the works were by American artists, such as Thomas Moran, who are well known in America but who we had never come across before and the themes of the paintings were interesting, many featuring scenes from the Civil War. We also went up to the top of the De Young tower where we had a great 360 degree view of San Francisco. (click on the images to enlarge)
Thomas Moran – Grand Canyon of ArizonaWinslow Homer – The Bright SideJohn Singer Sargent – Stringing OnionsWilliam Hahn – Sacramento Railroad StationEastman Johnson – A Different Sugaring OffGeorgia O’Keeffe – The Nation No1Georgia O’Keeffe – Front of Ranchos ChurchDale Chihuly – Ultramarine Stemmed Form with OrangeDale Chihuly & Italo Scanga – Rover’s Garden Grows
Not far from our hotel we happened upon Blazing Saddles, a bike hire shop so we hired e-bikes and cycled along the coast to the Golden Gate Bridge stopping for a coffee along the way where we saw a heron (it’s tradition to see a heron on our bike rides). As is often the case, the bridge was covered in cloud as we rode across and it was actually quite chilly but we soon warmed up when we arrived in Sauselito on the other side. After another delicious empanada at Copita Tequileria y Comida, we cycled up the coast a bit and then inland to the Old Mill Park in Mill Valley where we saw lots of giant redwood trees and huge very expensive looking houses hiding in the sides of the hills. We then cycled back to the coast passing lots of houseboats which looked nothing like those on our canals. They were more like actual houses built on concrete slabs sitting in the sea. We put our bikes on the ferry to Fisherman’s Wharf and that evening treated ourselves to margaritas at Barrio, a restaurant on the waterfront.
We spent a day in the Museum of Modern Art, getting there as soon as it opened. So much to see and take in. What a wonderful place.
Praise Frisco
William Scott – This work spans the whole of one wall of the ground floor of SF MoMA. It’s William Scott’s largest painting to date. The full name of the painting is “Praise Frisco: Peace and Love in the City” It is one of a series of commissions by local artists. To find out more click here
There was so much art work – paintings, installations, textiles, you could spend days wandering around taking it all in and then going back again. Here are a few samples. (click on the image to increase the size)
Charles Alston -CityscapeFrida Kahlo- Frieda and Diego RiveraJudith Scott – UntitledMatisse – Femme au chapeauMatisse – Sketch for Le Bonheur de vivrePicasso – Still Life “The Coffee Pot”Yayoi Kusama – Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My HeartOlafur Eliasson – One-way colour tunnelAndy Warhol – Nine MarilynsVirginia Admiral – Abstraction No. 1Rothko – No. 14, 1960Elmer Bischoff – Orange SweaterAnni Albers – ScrollAndy Warhol – Self PortraitAlfredo Ramos Martínez-Zapatistas
Travelling around San Francisco has been easy with buses, trams and the subway. And after a few days we’ve been finding our way around. The F bus and tram leaves from near our hotel and that seems to be our ‘go to’ bus. For over 65s it’s just $1.50 for a multi-trip of up to 2 hours.
Our friend from SF said that we had to check out the Oasis bar, so Sunday evening found us there with DJ RAAG playing fantastic Bollywood style music and as you can see, the audience going wild!
During our stay in San Francisco we decided to visit Alcatraz. The audio guide was very informative. The prison on Alcatraz island was initially a military prison – those imprisoned included WW1 conscientious objectors and soldiers discovered to be gay. From 1934 to 1936 it was used as a state prison. Prisoners from other prisons were sent to Alcatraz if they had been behaving badly. There were several escape attempts but only one was successful and it is not known whether the three men who escaped together actually survived the attempt. They disappeared without trace and may well have drowned in San Francisco bay. (click on the images to enlarge).
Inside the prison
Nature had taken over in some of the areas outside the prison and whilst waiting for the ferry we were observed by this bird.
For me, by far the most interesting aspect of Alcatraz was learning about the Indian occupation of 1969. When you arrive on the island you can see graffiti on the walls and the water tank, declaring the island to be Indian land. There is a room on the island devoted to this occupation with information around the walls and a video to watch (see below).
Here is the video (in four sections) of the Indian occupation of Alcatraz. It is well worth watching.
We took a bus to the Latino area of San Francisco, the Mission District, for one of the highlights of our visit to San Francisco, the Precita Eyes murals tour. Precita Eyes is a community based mural arts organisation which was founded in 1977. Its aim is “to enrich and transform urban environments and educate communities locally and internationally about the process and the history of public community mural art”. It offers low cost art classes for children, young people and adults, mural education workshops and seasonal community painting workshops. It also offers mural tours.
The tour we went on was led by the lovely Carmela Gaspar who was really interesting and very informative. Most of the tour took place in nearby Balmy Alley, which runs between 24th and 25th Street. Balmy Alley is a privately owned road in which all the walls and garage doors are covered in amazing murals, some painted in the 1970’s and some as recently as this year. Many of them have a political theme such as human rights, political corruption, gentrification and government injustice, and the titles are often in Spanish (click on the images to enlarge)
In addition to those in Balmy Alley there are more than sixty other murals in the Mission District. Precita Eyes have produced a map showing where they are, their titles and the names of the muralists who created them.
After feasting our eyes on these colourful, vibrant and very powerful murals we wandered through Mission, sampling some Mexican food on the way of course. We came to a bookshop called Medicina para Pesadillas – Medicine for Nightmares and saw a woman standing in the shop window holding a microphone, and a crowd standing outside. As we drew nearer, we realised that she was reading out her poems and they were being broadcast in the street! Later we also came upon various bands playing music in the street. It was a great atmosphere.
We ended the day walking to 18th Street to take a look at the amazing mural on the outside of the Women’s Building and then people watching in Dolores Park as we admired the great views over the city.
