Santa Barbara to San Francisco (336miles about 6hrs 20min)

We left Santa Barbara after the token free breakfast which some US hotels provide, juice, fruit muffins and doughnuts. We also left the town thinking that it was nice enough but a bit sedate for our tastes. On clearing the built up area of Santa Barbara we joined the US -101 again and our first sat-nav instruction was after 123 miles keep left, this like little else illustrates the distances we were travelling and the lack of variation in the driving. Julia up to this point had undertaken all the driving which is our normal decision home or abroad but I was a listed driver and fully intended to share the driving as she became tired. We had decided to visit Carmel on the way to San Francisco not so much to see Clint Eastwood who is/was the mayor of the town rather to see the town itself as it had favourable reviews in our California guide book. Getting there proved a bit tricky as we had to do the old-fashioned thing of reading road signs as we had no zip code to aim the sat-nav at. We found Carmel By The Sea and assumed this to be our destination. There was no sign of Clint, but we had expected that, we found the sea and were amused to see two brides paddling in it, not together they were from two separate weddings. Apparently this is common and we then watched one bride and groom drive off in her truck, not the fairy carriage of legend. We had lunch in the town which was very neat and tidy; the risk of being gunned down by the mayor probably deters littering. Whether our sat-nav adjusted the route because of our new position when we switched it back on, the rational explanation, or because we had upset it by switching it off, our choice of explanation, we do not know. It decided for whatever reason to approach San Francisco via Oakland – it did not help that Oakland Raiders were playing San Francisco Giants in a pre-season game that very evening and the roads were very busy. We made slow progress and eventually entered San Francisco via the Bay Bridge, we still believe the good old US -101 would have avoided the bridge and the problems but worse was to follow. Typically of our journeys, we left the freeway with less than 3 miles to our destination, at once we were depressed by the area we found ourselves in, the shops were a mixture of the two types of pawn/porn and there were sex clubs and cinemas to drive the point home. As the distance to the hotel Renoir decreased there was no miracle improvement and we found the sat-nav all too accurate. While Julia parked outside and I went in to find out where to park she locked herself in the car, this is the same woman who rarely locks her car when she parks it and leaves it. Parking was by valet service and cost $38 per day – not what I wanted to hear. We found the hotel passable but it had been surrounded by the cast and set of Hill Street Blues since it had been built. We had little inclination to venture out but we needed to eat. We decided that we would take the recommendation of one of the reception staff and eat at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy, so we asked them to call a taxi for us. They called three but whether it was because it was Friday night, their theory, or because taxis didn’t like stopping near the Renoir, our theory, none arrived for 45 minutes. By this time hunger got the better of fear, and we ventured out on foot. We walked towards the signs of civilization and found a bar/restaurant packed to the doors. We queued up for less than ten minutes and got a table, while we ordered and ate there was a live Jazz combo performing, I’d rather have my food unaccompanied by this brand of trilling and wailing but Julia enjoyed it and it lightened her mood. Our return was of course even darker and later and for once I was closer to understanding why youths might carry knives for their own protection but I resisted the temptation to steal the steak knife. We set off unarmed but determined. We arrived unmolested but still not happy with our location and further upset that this was the first multiple night stopover; two nights.
We decided to spend as much of the next day as possible as far from the hotel as we could. We, with the help of the reception staff, who incidentally claimed one taxi appeared only minutes after we set off earlier, booked a double decker bus tour of the city for most of the day and a baseball match for the evening, San Francisco v LA Dodgers.
It was part of the tour that we were picked up by the firm’s minibus and taken to the San Francisco Waterfront where we joined our bus. The driver was also the tour guide and he knew an incredible amount about the city and delivered it while driving the bus through all manner of traffic. He claimed that it was his sixth tour of the week when he usually limited himself to three because his opinions tended to take over the information as he did more trips. We saw evidence of this as we toured the city. The mist refused to lift and when we reached the highest point of the city it was possible to see the layer of fog sitting on the city but nothing below it, the Golden Gate Bridge remains unseen by us for the same reason. We hugely enjoyed his commentary which fitted our sense of humour and were entertained for over two hours. He knew all the different districts that we went through and was quite clear which ones were taken over by “scum” at night at this time our hotel did not get mentioned. It was only when he returned to the waterfront and let off many off the passengers before planning a route back to hotels for the others. When we told him our hotel he said, “Nice Hotel, Terrible Area! Surrounded by scum-bags” and he dropped us off last to minimize causalities if there was unrest in the area.
We thought of using a taxi to get to the game in the evening but we were persuaded to take the underground train. We went down into the system less than a block away from the hotel and everything changed, it was clean, the staff was helpful and it only cost $1.50 each. As soon as we got on the right train we found nearly everyone was heading for the game. The match was exciting and we stayed to the end to see the Giants win 3-2 in an extra innings having been 1-1 after nine innings. Apparently most people drop into a baseball game either arriving late or leaving early, some do both but we didn’t know that rule so we watched and enjoyed it all. We returned to the hotel equally uneventfully and perhaps had mellowed somewhat towards the area but Julia was kept awake most of the night by fighting and the police response to it outside the sex cinema directly opposite our window.
On both mornings I brought doughnuts from a small shop several doors from the hotel, venturing out early I saw considerable numbers of people of both sexes sleeping on the street.
I feel I should make the following points, despite my attempts at humour we were both genuinely scared at times on the street and the situation was all our fault. I had looked the hotel Renoir up on the internet and despite reading where it was situated we together decided to go ahead with the booking rather than asking the tour organizer to get it changed. We will be happy to return to San Francisco in the future and we will probably book a hotel on the Waterfront where there was character and comfort.