San Francisco- The Verdict...Are we leaving our hearts here?

Overall, we've really enjoyed ourselves in San Francisco. There are some absolutely great spaces, some beautiful views and fantastic neighbourhoods.

Things we really liked and highly recommend:

• Alcatraz. This has to be one of the best tours you can take anywhere. Add this to the bucket list

• Architecture- there is a great variety here with an amazing collection of Victorian homes and more modern designs all mixed in together to give the City a feeling of organic growth and a great mix of styles

• Ghiradelli Square- an absolutely fantastic adaptive re-use that combines great retail, restaurant and hospitality with a historic and iconic structure. Fabulous public space, great location. On top of that, great ice cream! Ours was similar to this  http://www.flickr.com/photos/viewoutoffocus/4908934960/

• Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach- the park is beautiful and contains so many uses and activities, located right in the City with great transit access. Ocean beach is a fabulous way to end a trip through the park. The only downside is the park is huge and takes a long time to traverse. Oh, and trees jump out of nowhere and hit redheads

• Shopping at Union Square- Shopping in San Francisco is absolutely incredible. There aren't many cities that rival the variety and quality of shopping in and around Union Square. 

• AT&T Park- one of the best, if not the best ballpark in baseball. Cold though. Great food! Great transit access and located in an up and coming yuppie neighbourhood. We didn't have a ton of time to explore, but there could be some more complementary uses around such as restaurants and bars. 

• Civic Centre- Beautiful public space but is avoided by many tourists as you need to go through the nasty "tenderloin" neighbourhood. 

• Belden Place- a great little hidden gem in the financial districts, 7 restaurants that spill out into the lane in the evenings.

• Palace of Fine Arts- this is such a fabulous public space and probably the most beautiful space in North America to get married.

The not so great:

• Hands down, Fishermans Wharf was the worst. It sucks. It is everything I hate about being a tourist- gimmicky gift shop after gimmicky gift shop, shitty chain restaurants. It has a few things going for it
1. Sea Lions
2. Location- you can't go wrong being on the water
3. Cable Cars- while the ride is cool, its become only a tourist attraction and most times requires a 40 minute wait from Ghiradelli Square. In the morning it isn't bad, but its insane to have to wait 40 minutes to utilize something that is a transit service. If the demand is that high they should add cars to the line

• Chinatown. I'm not sure if its because we're from Vancouver and exposed to it frequently, but again, just a gimmicky tourist spot. Maybe we didn't go deep enough into it, but we lost interest pretty quick. 
• Hills- there are too many, but this one was cool!

So, to answer the big question. Are we leaving our hearts in San Francisco?

In the end, we've really enjoyed it here, we're glad we came, but its just a like and not a love.