We only had one day in San Francisco during our Christmas trip to Northern California but we always cherish whatever time we have in that great city.

Part of the fun was that we took the BART into town. That means a 40-minute drive from the farm in Tracy to Pleasanton and then a 40-minute ride to the Embarcadero.

We went to the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, which meant taking the N-Judah Muni, which is both an underground and overground mode of transport. Cool.

We got off at Ninth Avenue in the Sunset district and walked into San Francisco’s awe-inspiring Park. Imagine our surprise when there was a one hour wait to get into the museum, which opened its new building in October. And that was the member’s line.

But it was a lovely day and we didn’t mind standing on line. Well, we minded a little. But it was worth it: the museum’s new digs are gorgeous complete with a green roof that reminded Teen Spirit of the Teletubby set.

In addition to a great aquarium, the museum features an elaborate rain forest exhibit, dioramas akin to those at New York’s Museum of Natural History, an albino alligator, a penguin exhibit and much more.

Worth the wait. But it was very, very crowded inside.

We also went to the gorgeous new deYoung Museum, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan Architects, where we saw an amazing—and very powerful—exhibit called In the Name of God: War, Religion and the Reliquaries of Al Farrow, in which the artist appropriates and reinterprets the traditional iconography of Jewish,
Christian, and Islamic religious institutions. The Spine and Tooth of Santo Guerro (2007), is an elaborate construction appears to be a scale model of a European Gothic cathedral. Closer examination reveals
that nearly the entire structure is fabricated from deconstructed gun
components, as well as bullets and steel shot.

Afterwards, we made our usual pilgrimage to the City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, where I browsed their second floor poetry department—one of the best poetry selections I’ve come across.

We walked from North Beach back to Market Street passing the tail end of an Anti-Gaza  demonstration, which brought out a crowd of kafiah-clad protestors, police vans, news trucks and police helicopters overheard.

Later, we stopped in the Palace Hotel, our favorite bathroom stop in San Francisco. We also like to gaze at the Victorian Garden Court, and the wood-paneled Pied Piper Bar with its gorgeous Maxfield Parish mural over the bar. That hotel was built before the 1903 earthquake.

Then it was back to Tracy on the BART. 40 minutes and we were back in Pleasanton to begin our drive through Livermore and the Altamont Pass, a hilly area filled with graceful windmills generating electrical power.