North Beach Festival – Day in the City
This is turning into one of my favorite day trips. Its so easy and conveniant to take BART to San Francisco. We board in Union City (only two miles from home) and disembark at Embarcadero Station in the city. When you go up those stairs from the station to the street, all of a sudden you are smack dab in one of the greatest cities in the world. Throw in a sunny summer day and you have the perfect ingredients for a great day in San Francisco.
The City was hopping! Not only was there a Giants game going on, there was also the North Beach Festival in Little Italy. The festival was only a short walk from the BART station so we decided to check it out. But as soon as we got out of the BART station someone had to use the bathroom so we stopped at the Hyatt Regency for restroom break. Since we were there we had a drink and light lunch. Crab Louies were really good!!
After that it was off to North Beach. The Festival was real crowded. They had two stages with music, food booths and arts and craft stuff. More like the Fremont art and wine festival but in North Beach. The best seats in the house were the little tables on the sidewalks outside of the Italian restaurants. No such luck in getting any of those. The wierd thing about this festival was the alcohol control. They had these large areas that were roped off where you could drink and buy beer and wine. You could drink in all the bars and restaurants but you could not walk around with a drink. I guess they know from experience that thing can get out of control.
We walked all around the festival and decided to head to the wharf where we thought it would be less crowded. We walked down Broadway to the Embarcaderos and made our way to one of our favorite places, Pier 23. We wet our whistle there and had a little appetizer while we watched a HUGE cruise ship take off to sea with a boat load of cruisers. It blew its big ass horn and was out of site within minutes. Very cool!!
It was such a beautiful day on the wharf. Tourists were everywhere!! We made our way to Pier 39 and checked out all the shops (and tourists). Walked out to the end to to see Alcatraz and the bay. The wind was blowing pretty good and there were all sorts of boats out in the bay. Walked around the other side to checkout the seals that hang out on the docks. Some big boys out there!!
At some point we wanted to eat dinner somewhere so we made our way to Scoma’s. I’d never seen it so packed!! Tourists, Giants fans, everyone, was at Scoma’s. It was an hour wait but totally worth it! Fortunatly we got a seat in the bar while we waited. We were talking to a group of Giants fans about the game. There were just finishing their drinks an offered us their seats. So we ended up with a nice window view seat while we waited for our table.
We started our day in Little Italy and ended it at an authentic San Francisco Italian fish house. The waiters at Scoma’s are old school, professional waiters in white coats who can not only chat you up but also knows everything about anything on the menu. Our waiter was that guy. I ended up with what turned out to be the best fish dish I ever had. When I took my first bite of the sand dabs (grilled in lemon caper butter) I was in heavan!! I only wish that I wasn’t already so full from eating and drinking our way through the city. Either way, those sand dabs were the best ever!
We took a cab from Scoma’s back to Embarcadero BART station. Within an hour we were back home in Fremont. The end to a perfect day!
