We finished in San Francisco, with a bike ride across the Golden Gate and a day among the towering redwoods at Muir Woods.
I like this city. It's got a great mix of quirky and quaint; it's got character and charm, but it's also grimy and grungy. It's a real quad-buster with steep, long hills that you know you've seen featured in many a Hollywood movie car chase.
As usual, we spend days taking it all in on foot and throw in the occasional tandem bike ride to extend our reach, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito for a seaside lunch.
Likes: touristy but still classic cable car rides, windy Lombard Street, Golden Gate Bridge and Park, Sausalito, Muir Woods, Napa Valley, Ocean Beach, the alternative scene, drip coffee, organic Blue Bottle coffee, wineries and speakeasies, sunset at the Top of the Mark and fortuitously catching up with our friend, Seb, for top-notch Italian at Delfina.
Dislikes: the sad and sorry state of widespread homelessness in San Francisco (which is among the highest per capita of US cities).
Our San Francisco road trip takes us across the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito for lunch and a casual stroll through its pretty streets.
We navigate steep and twisting roads until we reach Muir Woods – home to some of the world's most impressive plant life: the redwoods. They stand upright, grand and imposing, stretching more than 300ft into the sky. We look up in awe, necks strained, and see treetops that started their ascent some 1500 years ago. These are the beasts of the plant world.
