What to do in a week in SF?
 

I normally answer the question "How can we spend a week in Germany"? So pls. guys, allow me to present my question "What can the two of us do for a full week in SF?" (and do not shout USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION!).

We are in our fourties, professionals, no kids, very frequent travellers, normally fly First Class, know how to ride on the Cable Car and will stay at the Hilton close to China Town and know most (all?) of the downtown tourist spots.

This year we will take some more time and we are longing for all the proposals beside the usual tourist routes. Furthermore, all restaurant recommandations will we highly appreciated from a midmarket lunch place to the upmarket $$$$ dinner place.

Thanks for you help....

For lunch, my hubby and I like Brandy Ho's. Hot, hot, hot! ^
Based on recommendations here, we ate at Zuni and Boulevard for dinner. Zuni is awesome. We can't wait to go back there. Boulevard also has great food, but we found the service was so technically proficient it was cold. Don't even try to joke around with the staff.

I know you said not the usual tourist spots, but consider Alcatraz at night if you haven't done it. We waited until almost closing when everyone else had left and got some great black and white shots of the place with no one in them.

1. Go see Beach Blanket Babylon. Rarely have I laughed so hard for a night.

http://www.beachblanketbabylon.com/

2. Marin Headlands -- just across the Golden Gate bridge. Fantastic views of the bridge and city.

Find a place to leave your heart ;)

I highly suggest the Beach Blanket Babylon show - I've been perhaps somewhat less than 10 times, the story never changes, but the show always does, and it is always a riot.

I would suggest that you pass on Napa Valley and head up to northern Sonoma County (Geyserville, Healdsburg), where your wine experience will be much more tranquil and enjoyable. This will require a car, or a private driver. There are a lot of small family run wineries that for me offer a much better experience than Megacorp Vineyards.

For dining, there are hundreds of great choices, from dirt cheap to $$$$ - you may want to start checking out Chowhound.com and search around the San Francisco board. The newest "hot place" is Perbacco (next to Aqua) - I haven't yet been but am going for lunch soon. One of my faves is Tu Lan - a Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall on 6th @ Market (a short seedy walk from your hotel). The imperial rolls and lemon beef salad cannot be beat. For a (probably) unique dining experience ($$$$), try Michael Mina @ the St. Francis - I've heard it has slipped a tad, but I've had one of life's most enjoyable meals there. For non-pretentious very casual and exceptionally-delicious italian, there's l'osteria del forno, on Columbus (North Beach) - 9 tables, no reservations, cash only - and as the name describes, they only have an oven. If you can't cook it in an oven, they don't have it. Long lines form. Although it gets mixed reviews (never bad, though), I love Mangarosa (also in North Beach, on Stockton just above Columbus) - Italian/Brasilian food. Lively, bright flavors, respectable wine list, moderately-priced. I could go on and on and on about places to eat. The thing here is that when we have a meal that isn't "wow" or tastes "flat", it is most likely because we are used to eating good food most of the time, and don't appreciate it until we end up visiting Chain Restaurant Hell, or the Land of Boiled Pie and Pudding.

Breakfast at Buena Vista Cafe. At Bay end of Aquatic Park cable car line. Good food, famous Irish Coffee. Its fun to get loaded at breakfast! ^ Two or three Irish will enhance your day. :)

BV is also a famous singles bar later on in the day. Great view of Bay and Golden Gate. Check out the back room if there is no table seating in the main room. Back room has a view too. Take the cable car there. Very hard to park.

Go to Berkeley and walk around the campus. Really nice. You can take BART there. If you have a car, go up to Berkeley Rose Garden. Amazing view of Golden Gate Bridge.

Rollerblade or bike through Golden Gate Park. Several places on Haight St. rent the equipment.

If you go to the East Bay/Berkeley there is also a great foodie area right by the Rockridge BART station. Well worth a visit to the European style food markets and restuarants by the station.

For one day, drive down Highway 1, Stop at Ft. Funston to watch the hang gliders fly 40 ft. overhead. Devils Slide, Santa Cruz, Monterey (for the Aquarium and Monarch butterflies), Carmel by-the-sea (for the shopping) and home. A bit tight for one day, but doable. You can separate Ft. Funston, Highway 1 and Santa Cruz from the rest for a two day trip. Overnight in Monterey for this.

For a second day check out the Oceanic Society for a whale watching expedition to the Farallon Islands. I think they are still showing my slide show on the way out. :) It is an all day trip, but very cool.

My standard recommendation: rent a bike. Rent one in the Wharf, and once you've done so, get the heck out of the Wharf. Ride trough the Presidio to the Sausalito ferry (i.e., across the GG Bridge). Send me a PM if you're interested, and I'll give you the details.

See http://www.blazingsaddles.com/rides.html (there are other rental shops, but this is the only one I've heard of).

That's a good one. Rent a bike at the Wharf, ride to Sausalito (over the GGB), eat lunch at Scoma's, then take the ferry back to SF. Perhaps a side trip to the Ferry building for the farmer's market.

Wonder if the bar at the ferry terminal in Sausalito that used to hand out match books stating: "Take ferry to Sausalito, take a fairy home" is still there and still doing it. :)

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Sausalito is not a recommended spot for gay cruising. San Francisco on the other hand...

A few months ago I went to Angel Island for a picnic. While there, I rented a Segway for a 2 hour tour of the island ($40). It was a lot of fun and includes a lot of history of the island (military & immigration). There were some great photo ops as well.

As recommended in previous posts, get the book "Stairway Walks in San Francisco" (Wilderness Press). It is a great guide for discovering many neighborhoods of SF with a great narration.

Great proposals, thanks a lot. Any recommandation for extraordinary Asian/Chinese and Californian eating places? Thanks a lot!

Of course, there's that restaurant a mile down the hill from me here in Berkeley.

http://www.chezpanisse.com/

I'm not a foodie, so I'm not wild about the place. Still, it is an excellent and interesting restaurant, and probably worth a trip across the Bay for you. You could take BART to Downtown Berkeley, stroll through the western end of campus and end up at Chez Panisse for the early seating downstairs (0.75 to several miles of walking, depending on how much strolling you do).