Driving our rental car east from San Francisco we crossed the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River in Manteca, stopped at a fruit stand in the San Joaquin Valley, bought groceries in Groveland, and then headed up into the mountains of Yosemite National Park. Our first stop was Olmsted Point where we were greeted with views of Clouds Rest and Half Dome (my Dad and I reminisced about walking up both those years ago).
Where do first time visitors with four days go in SF? Turns out mostly to places I hadn’t been to before even though I came to the city multiple times with my grandmother when I was a kid. I wish I could remember the house where she was born, the house where she grew up, the house where she got married — I think she pointed out all of those to me.
Let’s start with a famous bridge
and a less famous bridge.
Continue readingOk, it’s been over nine months since I’ve published a blog. I’ve done a bit of traveling in the meantime and sadly only three short bicycle tours, but I’ll start where I left off. Ferda and I had a direct flight from London to Los Angeles (21 hours from our hotel to my parents’ house; finding that inexpensive trans-Atlantic flight was the impetus for our UK trip) and started a road trip with my Dad a couple weeks later.
Our first stop was in Ventura at the San Buenaventura Mission, one of the California’s missions that perhaps even my Dad hadn’t been to before. It was the third that Ferda and I have visited together after Alcalá in San Diego and San Miguel Arcángel on another road trip with my Dad two years earlier.
These are places we’ve heard about for years like Big Ben, Tower Bridge, and Westminster Abbey
Since Ferda and I were in Glasgow heading to London, we had to stop by Edinburgh, right? It pops up on lists of travellers’ favorite cities in Europe, and maybe that was part of the problem. I think I had high expectations, imagining something like Cáceres on steroids. By the end of the first day I was pretty unimpressed. However, Edinburgh grew on me, and by the end of our visit I understood why people like it.
On our first afternoon we happened upon the Mansfield Traquair Centre on the one day/month that they’re open to the public. It’s an old church now used for events.
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