St. Mary's Cathedral, Cathedral Hill. The centerpiece of the cathedral is an enormous chandelier; I don't know what it's made of--it seems to be silver pipes or tubes--but it has a magical effect and seems to be both massive and airy at the same time. We liked the bronze sculpture above the door, but we couldn't find a word written about it.

We took a ferry to Sausalito, making the most of the glorious weather.

Sausalito was splendid--full of flowers, hills, wonderful views.

Great pine trees! A fountain and an elephant (one of a pair).

Shots of Alcatraz.

We saw a remarkable bronze memorial to mechanics built by someone in memory of his father--unforunately, no recollection of his name! But the bodies were interesting enough.

The main idea on coming to SF was to have dinner at Chez Panisse, which we did Monday night. We began the day with a walk through Chinatown (which at 9 a.m. was mostly closed) up Columbus Avenue (through North Beach) to Coit Tower.

There's no underestimating the climb, but it's worth it. The weather was good and we had great views all around.

From there we headed to Fisherman's Wharf (where Tom enjoyed looking at the docked cargo ship from World War II) and then went back to North Beach (Little Italy) to have coffee at Cafe Puccini. On the way through Chinatown we enjoyed using the Transamerica building as a locator. We were surrounded by (we assume) Chinese people buying produce and groceries that had been given only Chinese names, although the prices were in dollars. The streets around us looked like SF, but the activity didn't.

We ended our walk on Nob Hill, where we enjoyed views of the Fairmont Hotel and Grace Cathedral.

We took BART to Berkeley, walked around the campus, stopped for tea at a CD store near the University Press bookstore, and then went to dinner.