13-15th day

San Francisco-Berkeley-Napa Valley

San Francisco
San Francisco is a colorful city, only 51% speaking English as native language. Its history started with the California Gold Rush, which brought a flood of treasure seekers, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.

 It has 837000 inhabitants today (6,898 people per km²⁾. Including the metropolitan area it is 8 million.

 Alcatraz was designed to hold prisoners who continuously caused trouble at other federal prisons. At 9:40 am in the morning of August 11, 1934, the first batch of 137 prisoners arrived at Alcatraz During the 29 years it was in use, the jail held some of the most notorious criminals in American history, such as Al Capone. It was closed in 1963, because of its high operation costs.

 Filbert Street and 22nd Street in San Francisco are two of the steepest navigable streets in the Western Hemisphere, at a maximum gradient of 31.5%.

The above stretch of Lombard Street was even more steeper as long it was modified into the above street having 8 hairpin turns.
 

 An icon of San Francisco, is operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Of the twenty-three lines established between 1873 and 1890, three remain. The cable cars are pulled by a cable running below the street, held by a grip that extends from the car through a slit in the street surface, between the rails. Each cable is 1.25 inches (3.175 cm) in diameter, running at a constant speed of 9.5 mph (15.3 km/h), and driven by a 510 (380 kW) electric motor located in the central power house.

 San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf gets its name and neighborhood characteristics from the city's early days of the mid to later 1800s when Italian immigrant fishermen came to the city by the bay to take advantage of the influx of population due to the gold rush. Lot of restaurants gift shops and tourists....

Berkeley
On the way to Napa we made a stop to have a breakfast in Berkeley. The famous university with the same name, established in 1868 as the result of the merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College in Oakland.

Berkeley faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 72 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley was ranked the world's 5th most prestigious university and one of six globally recognized "super brands.

Berkeley offers 106 Bachelor's degrees, 88 Master's degrees, 97 research-focused doctoral programs, and 31 professionally-focused graduate degrees. The university awarded a total of 7,526 Bachelor's, 2,164 Master's, and 1,264 Doctoral degrees in 2012. Unfortunately, this is all I could get here.

Napa Valley
Napa County, once the producer of many different crops, is known today for its regional wine industry, rising to the first rank of wine regions with France by local wineries Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Chateau Montelena winning the "Judgment of Paris" in 1976.

Wine tasting at Beringer winery

 For me compared to other famous wine regions (Bordeaux / Tuscany / South Africa) I visited before, was not that spectacular. Wineries were rather small concentrating more on merchandises around the wine itself. Still it was a nice experience and wine are good. Australia and Chile is still on the to do list.

Muir woods
On our last day we went to visit the closest place you can look at giant trees.
Muir Woods National Monument protects 554 acres of  old growth Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests, one of a few such stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The star attraction of the Muir Woods is the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). These relatives of the Giant Sequoia are known for their height. While redwoods can grow to nearly 380 feet (115 m), the tallest tree in the Muir Woods is 258 feet (79 m). The trees come from a seed no bigger than that of a tomato.Most of the redwoods in the Monument are between 500 and 800 years old. The oldest is at least 1,200 years old.

 After leaving the park, we still had some time and went back to San Francisco to see its Japanese Garden. In the evening left for a 20 hour trip home. It was a very intense road trip, visiting 3 major cities, 8 National Parks covering more than 5500kms in total.

For more pics here

12th day

 Silicon valley and San Francisco bay


Leaving Monterey, we had still a short stretch to drive along the coast. Wheather was really nice compared to the day before. We visitied a light tower, which is a compulsory program for a proper coastal drive.....   

Leaving the costland faced to inland, we drove the Mulholland drive connecting to the Silicon Valley. Here we could see some Red Woods already. In a later blog I ll write about these huge organisms in detail.

Silicon valley
Silicon valley started to rise in the 1950's thanks to Stanford University i.e. the Stanford technological park. More and more spin off companies started their busines here staying close to their origins, the university. Today the world biggest high tech companies are residing here offering around 500000 high tech jobs. Silicon Valley has the highest average high-tech salary at $144,800. In 2013 Silicon Valley received 41% of all U.S. venture capital.  
We visited some them.....

Golden Gate bridge

Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, the mile-wide, three-mile-long channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco. It opened in 1937 and had, until 1964, the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet. he construction budget at the time of approval was $27 million.

The Golden Gate Bridge's clearance above high water averages 220 feet (67 m) while its towers, at 746 feet (227 m) above the water.

More pictures here

10-11th day

Pacific Coast Highway
Highway No. 1

Higway No.1 is connecting LA with San Francisco. The highway is famous for running along some of the most beautiful coastlines in the USA, leading to its designation as an All-American Road. It s length between the two cities is around 450 miles, which we did in two days.

Santa Monica Pear

 

Leaving LA heading north we drove along well known places, like Santa Monica and Malibu, where the famaous people live and average go to the beach.
The Santa Monica Pier is a large  more than 100 year old pier with an amusent park on it. It offers great views of the ocean and the coastline as well.

1877 Santa Monica

 

2014 Santa Monica

Further north, you drive through Malibu`s 27 miles long scenic coastline, offering several stops. Hollywood stars and billionaires really like this place. The Oracle owner Larry Elison recently bought here 12 homes worth 250 million USD. Read the full article here

We did not have time to buy or even to look at any of the properties on sale and ended up only having a walk and eating a burger for lunch.

Next stop was Santa Barbara, which is already an hour drive away from LA, being more relaxed and quiet.Santa Barbara's climate is often described as Mediterranean, and the city has been promoted as the "American Riviera". Located between steaply rising mountains and the ocean.

We spent the night in Santa Maria, a few miles south from Herst Castle, that we can start our next day there.
The castle was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. Hearst formally named the estate "La Cuesta Encantada" ("The Enchanted Hill"), but usually called it "the ranch", since he several more properties in LA and New York. He also had a bigger ranch in Mexico.

Main entrance

Dining room

 The "ranch" here is 250,000 acres (1,012 km²) and has fourteen miles of coastline. Before the castle was built here it was used as a weekend campsite by the family.


Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Charlie Chaplin, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Franklin Roosevelt, Dolores Del Rio, Winston Churchill were among Hearst's A-list guests. Ocasionally Johnny Weissmuller came out to give swimming lessons for the guests.

He also had his own Zoo, with several exotic animals. As the Zoo was not maintained at some point anymore, animals were given to other Zoo s or simply just released. The zebras managed to survive and today they mingle with the cattle around the ranch.

Driving further north, there is big seal colonny close to San Simeon, which village is owned anyway from the first till the last property by the Hearst family.

 Returning to the seals, they stay here from late winter to late spring and are stinking while changing their fur.

For the rest of the day we were just driving direction Monterey. Weather was not so nice, still we stopped a coupe of times to enjoy the view and take photos. At the end of the day we drove the famous "17 mile drive" around Carmel (home to famous golf players) and finished with a sea food platter in Monterey.

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9th day

Los Angeles

A short visit to the "biggest village of the world".
Los Angeles including its metro area is spread over a 100 mile circle habituating around 13 million people. Traffic jams are biggest here in the whole US. Our timing was good. We made it to Hollywood from Las Vegas in 4-5 hours including a stop at the latest solar power plant in the Mojave desert.

The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility is a 370 MW complex, which consists of three separate solar thermal power plant. It was just finished a few month ago.



Hollywood sign 

"HOLLYWOOD" is spelled out in 45-foot-tall white capital letters, and is 350 feet (110 m) long. It was originally created in 1923 as an advertisement for a local real estate development. The sign was a frequent target of pranks and vandalism, but it has since undergone restoration, including the installation of a security system to deter vandalism.

In April 2009 The Trust for Public Land signed an option to buy the 0.56 km² property for a discounted price of $12.5 million and build some villas on it. (Remember; original costs for land and the sign in 1923 were 21000USD).

The Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner stepped forward to donate a first substantial part of the money to save the sign. Several actors joined later buying each a letter.

 Hefner bought the "Y". You know why? It symbolizing his bunnies....


Walk of fame and the Kodak Theater
The Hollywood Walk of Fame comprises more than 2,500 five-pointed stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard originated to 1956.

The emblems symbolize five categories within the entertainment industry:

Classic film camera representing motion pictures

Television receiver representing broadcast television

Phonograph record representing audio recording or music

Radio microphone representing broadcast radio

Comedy/tragedy masks representing theatre/live performance (added in 1984)

The Dolby Theater, formerly known as Kodak Theater is hosting since its opening on November 9, 2001, the Academy Awards ceremonies. The theater was designed by David Rockwell, specifically with the Oscar ceremonies in mind. Though the stage is one of the largest in the States  measuring 113 ft wide and 60 ft (18 m) , its seating capacity is only 3,332 people. On the walls of the entrance hall, you can read the titles of the Oscar winner movies from the beginning on. There is still place for another 60 years.

Venice Beach

Venice Beach, receives millions of visitors a year and has been labeled as "a cultural hub known for its eccentricities".
The basketball courts in Venice are renowned across the country for their high level of streetball; numerous professional basketball players developed their games or have been recruited on these courts.

Muscle Beach Gym is also a famous spot here, displaeyed in several movies.....

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures, being one of the 6 big studios, dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company. Founder Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. He planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time. By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success.

Today only Paramount Studios has still premises in Hollywood offering guided tours in small groups, which we attended as well. We could see some studios and sets and were told a lot of stories about different actors and movies made here.

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