Our first visit to San Francisco was part of our honeymoon in 1986. I have to admit, we didn’t fall in love with the city. In hindsight, I think it was because we did our usual travel style at that time, just wandering around the city.

Given the hills and how the neighborhoods are spread out, that’s not the best way to approach the city. We returned a few more times and appreciated it more, but I think this was our most enjoyable visit yet.

We started with happy hour on the Embarcadero prior to our night tour of Alcatraz.

Our visit to California was built around seeing a Jack White concert at the Bill Graham Auditorium. White added a second show at the Fillmore so we jumped on those tickets too since Jim and I had never been to the iconic venue. (Though we’ve been to the sister site in Philadelphia many times.)

We didn’t miss out on arts and history either, starting with a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Civic Center in San Rafael. It was Wright’s last project and the only government design to actually be built. It was astounding to us that a municipal government actually financed such a project. Sadly, Wright died before its completion.

On our last day we visited the Bay Model in Sausalito, another amazing government-funded project from 1957 that represents the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta system. The model spans 1.5 acres in a converted WWII warehouse and at the time was used to simulate how different types of development could affect the bay and delta. Today it’s used for educational purposes.

The warehouse also has a great display on how the Marinship shipyard was built on the site in less than three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. An entire city, Marin City, was developed to house the 20,000 men and women working at the shipyard. It’s a reminder of how Americans could come together in times of struggle.

We strolled from the shipyard to an Art Open Studio to take in some local art. If we weren’t headed to San Mateo for the last part of the trip we would definitely have checked out some of the cute shops, restaurants and bars in Sausalito.