San Francisco Day 1

Our base for this trip the Hotel Triton, right in the heart of down town San Francisco.  Our guide Eleanor Burke - former English teacher - took us down to the mission district.  There are so many stunning murals to see and Eleanor guided us around the best ones, a selection of which are posted above.  The most current is the 'Arab Spring' mural a tribute to the young Tunisian whose death sparked the peaceful protests that led to Mubarak stepping down as Egypt's PM.

We visited the pirate supply store that funds a local writing program on Valencia and Dog Eared Books - also on Valencia which I videoed because the owner surveyed his customers and painted their favourite books spine-out all over the exterior of the shop.  Lunch was at El Delfin, followed by a few more murals and then we rounded off the tour with ice cream at Humphrey Slocombe (thai chilli lime) then the group split up to do their own thing.  Linda and I walked up through ChinaTown to City Lights bookstore and back in time to meet the rest of the group for dinner.  We went two streets down from the hotel (maiden lane?) where there are French, Italian, Spanish and American eateries.  The group went Italian but all the restaurants looked fantastic.