We arrived early at the Ferry Building for our city tour with San Francisco Comprehensive Shuttle Tours [---------]. We were fortunate that our tour was planned for a Saturday morning since the Farmer’s Market was open. We planned the tour for the first full day of our trip so that we could get an overview of the city.

After about an hour at the Farmer's market, we went to the front of the building to meet for the tour. They split everyone up into two groups. Our tour guide’s name was Dean. The first tour group left right on schedule. Our bus arrived 25 minutes late which was a bit frustrating. Our guide tried to make the best of it by relaying some SF history while we waited but it would have been nice if the driver had at least apologized. The right side of the shuttle seemed to offer the best views although both sides were pretty good. Our guide was very informative and personable but the driver was not friendly in the least. You are asked to tip both (low pressure) but I did not feel the driver deserved a tip at all. Anyway, after getting a glimpse into how confusing and time consuming public transportation could be, I appreciated the relative ease of the tour. We saw many San Francisco sites from the bus including Pier 39, the Transamerica building, Coit Tower, Golden Gate Park, etc. We also took a walking tour at Nob Hill, Grace Cathedral, the “Six Sisters”, Chinatown, Lombard St. and the Palace of Fine Arts. The guide gave a lot of information about the sites we were passing while we were on the bus. I was a little disappointed that little commentary was given during the walking portions of the tour. This could be because our group was so large; we had a full shuttle bus. Of course, I’m the type who can never get enough history or facts and would always enjoy more not less information. The architecture in San Francisco is absolutely amazing. Grace Cathedral is breathtaking. The brilliant stained glass, murals and intricate molded doors on the front of the church (our guide did spend time explaining these) are not to be missed. I particular loved the rear window of the church (or was it the front?) that reminded me of a kaleidoscope- beautiful (I used this word a lot during our trip!). Lombard Street was also more alluring than I could have imagined. Although I expected the excitement of seeing the cars wind down the street, I had no idea that it would be covered in vivid hydrangeas, one of my favorite flowers. Lovely, lovely, lovely! Another wonderful surprise was the Palace of Fine Arts. I would consider this a don’t miss location. I would have loved a whole day just to wallow in the beauty of the place. It is very tranquil (even with all the other people around) and the weeping ladies are just majestic. There is also a beautiful swan filled pond. Take the time to venture out here if you can. The tour website stated the primary purpose of the stop at Golden Gate Park was to visit the Japanese tea garden. Well, you can visit the tea garden but the $3. fee (I think that’s the right amount) is not included in your $63.00 tour fee so be sure to have the cash on hand if you want to visit. We did decide to go inside although we were only allotted about 15 minutes. I surmise the intended purpose of the tea garden is to provide a peaceful reflective setting. Of course this was lost on us since we had to cruise through the place. It was very pretty, but I would have liked to spend more time here. At least we did get a chance to see it though. As we approached the end of our tour we were able to ride over the International Orange Golden Gate Bridge. We made a stop on the other side for pictures. As we found throughout our trip and as was expected, we could hardly see the bridge through the fog. The guide did say it was a little less foggy than normal and we did get some pretty good although obscured pictures. We arrived across the bridge to sunny Sausalito and at this point were on our own for about an hour. We purchased our lunch at a deli counter inside the Venice market. We bought tasty overflowing sandwiches on nice fresh bread. We brought them to a bench across the street down by the water and had a picturesque pleasant lunch (although we were accompanied by annoying pigeons and an even more annoying lady who was feeding them). After this we enjoyed walking around a few of the shops and simply relaxing on the green watching and listening to the beautiful fountain. We met up with a different tour guide and she brought us over to the 2:10 ferry. The tickets for this were included in the tour price. I’m really glad we decided to take the tour on our first day. We were able to experience and learn about many different sites and areas of the city. It was a great overview and gave us a better compass for finding our way around.