san francisco, part 3

I realized that I never showed you photos from our last day in San Francisco back in early December. So I think I'll do that. :)

On Sunday we got up and went to The Exploratorium, San Francisco's museum of "science, art, and human perception." It is next to the Palace of Fine Arts, which we had driven by the evening before on our fun Mr. Toad's Tour of the city.

The Exploratorium's space is cavernous, cold, fairly dark, and extremely interesting. It is full of installations you can get your hands on and play with. We goofed around for almost three hours!

We ate lunch in the little cafeteria there, and then we decided to explore the Union Street shopping area, which is in a section of the city called Cow Hollow. 

For reasons still unbeknownst to me, we had to climb this hill to get there. See it? See that hill? In the back of the photo? Going up? That hill.

On the way, because I am quite attached to oxygen, I stopped to breathe and take photos of interesting houses. San Francisco is a delight for anyone interested in architecture. You could do a whole tour of the city just looking up at all the interesting details.

I have to admit that when we got to the top of the hill, the view back towards the water was pretty cool.

I liked these almost-matching houses. Do you suppose the spire fell off the one on the left?

This one was gilded. Very spiffy.

These two are also twins, but the one on the left has been maintained a bit better, it looks like. 

Look how they sit up behind the storefronts. I don't remember seeing anything like this before.

It was a very rainy Sunday morning, and all the cafes were full of people warming up.

We popped into Chronicle Books, and Claire was quite charmed by the children's reading nook.

Our whole long weekend in San Francisco was full of so many, many interesting things to look at. I really recommend a visit if you are ever in the area. :)