Hiking in the Mountains. Downtown.

I had no idea that San Francisco was built, literally, in the mountains. They didn't bother leveling anything, they just built the city up and down the edges of the mountains. The picture above is taken from Russian Hill, with Telegraph Hill in the background. That's Coit Tower on the top of Telegraph Hill. Google "Coit Tower" and "Telegraph Hill" for some interesting reading. The cable car costs $5 per ride, but you can buy a 7-day pass for only $26, which I did. But the pass is misleading. The queue's to ride the cable cars contain hundreds of people, and only 1 cable car comes by every 10-15 minutes. I had to wait until almost midnight to get a ride with a decent wait. Fortunately, the pass also gives me bus privileges and tram and streetcar privileges, so I get to ride up the hill from the conference hotel. The conference hotel is at the Bottom of Nob Hill, but my hotel is at the TOP of Nob Hill. The cable car system was put in primarily because it is a lot of work trudging up and down mountains every day.

They call them hills, but in reality, they are very steep small mountains. And they are all over. All of these pictures were taken from the ground somewhere. Click on the pics for the bigger version and look how high the hill is compared to the valleys.

The view above is from Telegraph hill looking south towards downtown. The view below is also from Telegraph Hill, looking east towards the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

The picture below gives you some idea of how steep the side of some of the hills can be.

Looking west towards more hills. You can see the edge of the bay peeking out at the far right.

I don't have a picture of my hotel, but my hotel is the Stanford Court at the TOP of Nob Hill. The conference is at the Union Square Hilton at the BOTTOM of Nob Hill.

Stanford Court Hotel is built on the site of the former mansion built and occupied by Leland Stanford, Sr. back in the 1800s. Mr. Stanford was the president of the Union Pacific Railroad and is the bewhiskered executive who drove in the golden spike at Promontory, Utah. He bequeathed the endowment that founded Stanford University. His palace, sitting on the spot where I'm sitting as I write this, was destroyed in the fire after the 1906 earthquake. This hotel was been here since the 1960's. I'm staying in one of the six "club floor" rooms normally reserved for VIP's. Being a platinum member, I upgraded and got one of these nice six rooms. The hotel guest list (historically) contains dozens of notables including Truman Capote, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bing Crosby, Bill Cosby, Ronald Reagan, and dozens more. I could be sleeping in the bed used by any of them, who knows. It's comfortable, especially after a long day's hike in the mountains, up and down the sidewalks of San Francisco.

This is taken from the bay, looking south. Downtown is obscured by the hill in the way.

It's darn cold here. The high temperature each day has been near 60, maybe 65 downtown and only 50 on the bayfront. The low has been in the low 40's. Brrrr. Glad I brought my flannel shirts.