Road trips around California—including Sacramento, Atascadero, the desert, San Diego or north to Half Moon Bay and Fort Bragg—have time and again proven worthy of the fuel, hotel costs and drive time for me and my wife Sarah over the past several years.
Whether an overnighter of a week or more, the amount of history we wander through, art and history museums, unique stores and restaurants and surprises have consistently provided colorful experiences and some lasting memories.
This was the case in January when we drove up to San Francisco for a night at the Triton Hotel, built in 1913 in the business district across the street from the gateway to Chinatown.
While parking is often a trying issue in the city, The Triton suggests patrons park a few doors away at The White House Garage, an historical landmark built in 1908 at Sutter and Grant streets. Though it seems like a waste of space writing about a parking garage, this spot is worth a few words. According to the San Francisco Story The White House was a department store inspired by the Maison Blanche store in Paris. It specialized in “snow white gloves, table clothes, and undergarments conveying elegance, refinement, and Victorian cleanliness.”
Now its specialty is lots of parking spaces in a centralized spot.
After checking in we wandered up Grant Street, the spinal column of Chinatown. With the Chinese New Year in the air, we stopped in a trinket shop and bought a colorful poster depicting the “Year of the Horse.”
The bustling markets, from fish and poultry to colorful produce, T-shirts, incense, black and green teas and Ma Jong sets added a wave of excitement to the air. A man on the street playing an erhu, or Chinese violin, spiced the warm evening air as we passed by scores of brilliant outdoor murals or dragons, Chinese characters, and dramatic landscapes.
A favorite shortcut to Columbus Avenue, the heart of North Beach, is Jack Kerouac Alley. Its vibrant brick walls are emblazoned with murals and passages from the Beat Era, including Kerouac, as well as poets Allan Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
We walked a short distance to one of our long favorite cafes, Caffe Trieste, 601 Vallejo St. With their 65th anniversary celebration coming April 1, the place is a trove of early-day photos (including a famous visitor to the cafe, opera singer, Luciano Pavarotti), paintings, murals, a wood phone booth and a fantastic coffee counter with great pastries, pizza, cold drinks and their own in-house coffee roasting business.
Our next stop—just blocks away—was City Lights Bookstore, co-founded by Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin in 1953. Even if you’re not searching for a book or magazine or one of their interesting T-shirts, we’ve found it to be a great site to set your compass and blend in with the mood of North Beach.
In the next part of this travel adventure, just one hour and 40 minutes to the north from Watsonville, we head to Mister Jiu’s, 28 Waverly Place, for an Asian fusion dinner of top order before an evening of live standup comedy at The Punchline.
