After a quick (free) continental breakfast we wanted to get to San Francisco as soon as possible because we planned to see the Golden Gate Bridge.
As we reached the highway it started to rain heavily for the first time this trip, but when we got closer to San Francisco it cleared up.
We drove through Oakland and followed the bay north to the Bay Bridge. This Bridge is a toll-bridge ($2) and looks just as special as the Golden Gate Bridge.  When we drove over it Alcatraz appeared on our right side. I had never realized this little prison-isle is located so close to San Francisco.

When we looked far in front of us the Golden Gate Bridge appeared. It looked smaller than we imagined, but it still was a very special moment when we first saw it.

To get on the Golden Gate Bridge we had to drive through the center of San Francisco and I tried to find a roadmap of the center. The AAA-book had a small map and we used that to navigate to the center.
After a while signs appeared so it was much easier to drive and find our way.

The Golden Gate bridge is a toll-bridge ($2.50) as well. All bridges in San Francisco are toll-bridges but you only have to pay when you want to drive into the City.
We drove over the bridge and parked our car at the end. There were lots of tourists (mostly Japanese) and they all took photos. We decided to walk onto the Bridge and I was surprised to see it was bigger than I first thought.

After a while we drove to the ocean side of the Bridge to take some photos from there and enjoy the beautiful coastline.

It was still a bit early to go find our hotel, so we decided to locate the hotel for tomorrow, the Union Square hotel (in the middle of the city-center).
We parked the car in a parking garage on  Union Square. We were surprised to see the very high parking rates in this town.
Linda and Corine located a Disney Store and since they both still wanted to get denim Disney shirts they tried their luck there, while Erik and I tried to find the hotel.

We all were quite lucky today. Corine and Linda both found themselves very nice Pooh shirts, and Erik and I found the hotel just one block from the parking garage. The hotel looked quite fancy, so we hoped it would mean the rooms would be nice as well. Now though, we had to find our hotel near the airport.

The hotels in San Francisco appeared to be much more expensive than all the other hotels we stayed in during our trip. That's why we wanted to stay in an inexpensive hotel for one night and the other night in an expensive hotel in the center.

The Travelodge hotel wasn't very special. It was located next to the airport in an industrial area.  The parking was very crowded. There wasn't any space left so we decided to park on the grass. The manager told us a lot of people park their car (for free) at the hotel when they need to be at the airport. (I thought only Dutch people want to have everything for free!)
The room was better than we expected so it wasn't all bad.
There weren't many restaurants in the area and we didn't want to search today so we decided to have "dinner" in a Mac Donald's across the street. The service was lousy and the waiters didn't even speak any English. Next time I'll pay more for a hotel closer to the center!

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