Sunday, 28th July, 2013.
Plan A was that we would drive to Crissy Fields and take a walk along the beach towards the Golden Gate Bridge. However, when we arrived, it was blowing a gale and freezing cold, so we walked inland instead. Lucky Pat has two girls to keep him warm.
From where we were standing, Alcatraz looked suitably bleak and forbidding.
The Palace of Fine Arts could be seen from where we were, so we walked over for a closer look.
Originally built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expo, to exhibit works of art, the Palace of Fine Arts was designed as a fictional ruin, inspired by Roman and Greek architecture.
After the Expo, most of the buildings were demolished. However, the Palace was so beloved that a Palace Preservation League was founded by Phoebe Apperson Hearst while the Expo was still in progress, and so it was saved from demolition.
Originally intended to stand only for the duration of the Expo, the building was not durable, and by the 1950s the simulated ruin was in fact a crumbling ruin. In 1964 the original Palace was completely demolished and reconstructed, and became home to the Exploratorium interactive museum, and the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre. Laura and Arend have seen Tim Minchin there.
Paul checks out the view.
“The Palace” is now a favourite location for weddings, wedding photographs, and wedding watchers, and is such an icon that a miniature replica of it was built in Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim.
Pedram checks out the steps.
Zoe slept through it all.
We then went and had dinner in a local restaurant, then Laura took us to a retro Americana ice cream parlour. Is Pat going to eat both of these hot fudge sundaes?
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