San Francisco is supposedly the foggy city, for us, it was more the like very-long-walks-up-massive-hills city...and boy did we walk! We arrived in blazing sunshine to discover our grotty motel in the Marina area had no free parking for about a 3 miles radius, unwilling to the pay the £20/day the motel lady blasély recommended we do to park the car in a garage, we drove off to Castro (about 5 miles from Marina)to stash the car on free roads for the week. Castro is the 'gay' area so loads of nice cafes and bars and after a lovely lunch and not so lovely encounter with a mean bus driver, we abandoned SF public transport and began walk number 1 across the city to home. Trek is probably a better term as we climbed the largest hills you have ever seen, admittedly via a leisurely few drinks (including £2 wine!) and finally got home 8 hours later. As you do the morning after a night time hike, we got up the next day and decided to go for a run, I say run, John ran, I kind of jogged for the first 10 minutes then strolled along behind him, taking in the views of San Fran bay and wishing I'd brought the camera.The weather was so clear we thought we'd take advantage and pop along to the bridge and have a gander, and so began walk number 2. I somewhat misjudged the distances and my 'oh it's only 20 minutes to the bridge and 5 minutes across it' turned into a 3 hour walk just to get to the bridge, by which time it was getting dark, and a speedy trot across it. Turns out when you're up there it's much further than it looks, 2 miles in fact, and when you get to the other side there is no handy golf buggy to run you back over so we ended up walking the length of the bridge twice, by which point my feet were literally bleeding and I thought John was going to kill me.

The followingday we went to Alcatraz, which was amazing, but you guessed it, lots of walking around. I thought Alcatraz would be a bit theme parky, but actually it was quite spooky. The ferry drops you off and you are left to your own devices to poke around the island. Other than a few museumy bits, it's untouched and a bit eirey, no hot dog stands, picnic areas or gift shops or any of the usual beacons to remind you you're a tourist. The feeling is confounded when you get to the prison block , where you are guided around by the voices of both prison guards and ex-prisoners telling you their memories. That combined with the tiny cells and being surrounded by water gave me the heebie jeebies. Very interesting though, except for the now very old ex-prisoner sat looking very sad ready to sign your book at the end. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, I didn't think it was in the best of tastes! From Alcatraz we wondered through Fisherman's Wharf to see the sealions, check out the pics! And onto watch the baseball in the pub. While we were in San Fran, the SF Giants were playing the world series and went on to win it for the first time in 60 years so the city was going nuts for baseball and we attempted to join in. Day 4 was another Trek in search of Clam Chowder and to see the painted ladies, a series of beautiful old houses, and a long walk home having not worked out the bus, again. We left San Fran the following day with very achy legs but having had a brilliant few days.

Big Sur, baby.

On leaving San Francisco, we began the journey to Los Angeles down Highway 1. Highway 1 is a very famous road because it follows the coast all the way down to LA and provides amazing views of more rugged Californian coast line at every turn. We took the journey very leisurely, in order to take million photos and generally take it all in. The weather was really kind to us and the further south we got the more the sun shone and shone. Our first overnight stop was at a tiny fishing town called montery, made famous by John Steinbeck who wrote about Cannery Row. We ended up staying just off Cannery Row (which is now pretty nice, not as Steinbeck described it!) and fell asleep listening to the sea lions squark-barking. Bliss! The next day we began the drive down the Big Sur, a particularly stunning 100 miles of highway 1 coast line where the road twists and climbs up cliffs with sheer drops and amazing views of the ocean.The highlight was a place called Lucia Lodge where we stopped for lunch, we ate, sitting on the balcony which the most beautiful view of the ocean and cove. It was so serene I don't think I have ever felt more contented, it was just perfect. Our next stop was at the end of the Big Sur in a tiny seaside village called San Simion, made famous because it's at the bottom of Hearst Ranch which holds newspaper magnet Randolph Heart's infamous castle.Before we got to the castle we saw a colony of elephant seals which live on a beach right next the roadside so you can watch then fight and frolick for hours, they are huge and mesmerising! The next day we went to Hearst Castle which was also huge and mesmerising but in a very different way! It's set several thousand feet up on the hillside, overlooking the coast and was a feet of engineering to build in the 1930s when there was nothing on the site or for miles around. Hundreds of workers and their families had to be relocated to live nearby so they could build it, it took 15 years to build and he carried on making changes right up until he died in the 50's. At which point his 5 sons decided they didn't want it and after much trying eventually convinced the state to take it! For free! It's now estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds... The castle itself is Graceland-style lavish. The outside has the finish of a Spanish villa while the inside is more like a English castle, crammed to the rafters with paintings and antiques, wooden ornate ceilings and every kind of treasure you can think of from Italy, Greece, Spain. They reckon there are 25,000 pieces of art in there, a inferior equivalent in another collection sold for a mere £65 million.

From Hearst Castle we drove to Pismo beach for a night eating seafood and swimming before hitting LA the next day.