First Ride on a San Francisco Cable Care

Friday, March 14th, 2008 at4:35 am by traveltripz

Cable Car Turnaround in the rain After arriving back at the pier we walked up Jefferson and had lunch at Johnny Rocket. Just love eating at this diner.

Then it was back to the hotel before heading off to Hyde St to catch the cable car. The weather became very overcast and we had just purchased a 3 day ticket for $18.00 when it started to rain. We joined the queue and at the start it wasn’t too bad but as we shuffled along the sky opened and it began to pour.

We were both drenched, well so was everyone else except for those smart enough to have brought umbrellas. Paula decided she was wet enough and set off back to the hotel. I figured that as I was already soaked through I might as well stay in the queue, more so because I wanted to get the Ipod speaker finally sorted out with Apple.

I am short and so was sheltered by the umbrella being held by the gentleman standing behind me. We started chatting and eventually he and his wife decided to go back to their hotel. His place was taken by a really tall man who I don’t think even noticed me down by his kneecap. But he inadvertently sheltered me with his enormous golf umbrella until it was time to get on the cable car.

Finally the cable car arrived at the turnaround. Now this is an interesting exercise, the cable car pulls up onto a turntable arrangement and two men actually manually turn the cable car around until it is the right position to set off again.

Cable car turnaround

The Hyde St cable car drop off point is on the corner of Hyde and Market St, so you get off right in the shopping area. Anyway I was on a mission so off to the Apple store I went.

I explained how this was my third visit to the store and the speakers still weren’t working with my Ipod Nano. The salesman assured me it should work after all it said so on the box. We bantered too and fro for a while each taking a firm stand. Eventually another salesperson chimed in and said, “Oh no, the Belkin Speaker won’t work with the Nano”. And then the two salesmen had a discussion along the lines of – Yes it will, No it won’t. Finally I got my money back.

I walked back to the cable car stop and the queue was really long so I set off up the hill and thought about heading out to Circuit City in Van Ness St, but once I arrived at Union Square I decided to return back to the hotel as I was dripping wet.

When the cable arrived the only space was on the outside hanging onto the rail. This was fun and I felt just like a kid again. Once we reached Chinatown, a few people had hopped off and I got an outside seat.

Corner Souvenier Stall Now what I didn’t realise was that this was the Market – Powell St cable car not the Market – Hyde St cable, so when we reached the final stop I had no idea where I was other than I was not to far from the water.

So off I set, without a map, trying to identify any local landmark that may give me some idea of where I was.

It was quite funny really as I turned out to be about a block away from the street our hotel was in, I recognised the corner souvenier stall and the corner shop with some relief.

The Holiday Inn Express is situated in an excellent location close to many tourist attractions, bus and cable routes and there are many local restaurants and souvenier shops in the same block. So we found it really handy.

Corner Shop

The Powell St stop is nowhere near as busy as the Hyde St cable stop so my advice is to go to Powell St if you want to catch the cable car without having to queue for absolutely ages.

The cable cars are rickety and not terribly comfortable, but it is something you have to experience.

San Francisco Cable Car