Tales of San Francisco: For the Love of Food, Ferry Buildings & Art! Making the Most of Short Trip Travel

Getting up in a not so familiar location often makes for interesting times. However getting up in a hotel room where the lighting is dim (at best) and almost impossible to put on make-up makes one definitely cranky. While the Hotel Griffin is all about eco-friendly and being green, it’s also about not making one “look green” when they put on makeup.

San Francisco Ferry Building interior.. (photos of the Ferry Building courtesy of www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com
So instead of getting the knickers in a twist, we head out to the virtually across the street Ferry Building for the Farmer’s Market— which at 9 AM is already packed with people and is fun fun FUN!! This market is only done on Tuesday and Saturdays for restaurants and foodies to pick up fresh and organic provisions as well as stop and get a bite to eat at the really incredible variety of restaurants and take-out places within the Ferry Building.

Farmers Market ( photos of the Ferry Building courtesy of www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com )
Inside the building is also hot as their are food and coffee stalls and places with real storefronts.

Here’s a sampling of the stuff we saw! We did do a chunk of shopping– mostly tasting and smelling unique fragrances, berries, syrups and chutneys. What was really cool was the 6 pack of flavored olive oils. I could not pass that up.

Sciabica’s Gift Pack of 6 flavored oils.. YUM!!

Mushrooms. Wish I could have bought these– but they weren’t going to last in the heat of that weekend.

Shitakis looked awesome too.

How about this one? Do you know what this is?

Besides vegetables, I did take a few other shots:

Gorgeous tulips that I have 2 shots of:

Anything this pretty deserved a couple of shots.
Next up was my favorite place– and I spent serious money at Rechiutti buying chocolate. They had a promotion of spend over $45 and get a free trio of chocolate bars.

I of course promptly bought enought stuff to get those free bars. I bought the

Fleur de Sel Caramel box (which I have yet to finish)
and I bought this newer launch product —

The Asphalt Jungle Mix— Burnt Caramel Hazelnuts & Burnt Caramel Almonds, Cherries Two Ways and Peanut Butter Pearls.
If you check the prices, you will note that it doesn’t make quite the $45– but I did buy more…. even ate some on the way to the airport the next day.. however that was not enough for the TSA.. and that’s for another post!
Across the street from the Ferry Building was an “art fair” that I gather is regular staple selling various crafts, jewelry and fashion. Some was really good but a lot of things were over-priced or maybe I just wasn’t finding the right thing to give me the shopping buzz.
However it wasn’t far from this very cool sculpture that I shot:

One can say it’s a real “statement” piece..

This is a detail of part of the sculpture. By the time I shot this I was losing light quickly.
This is the end of part 3. I will have about 3 more posts to go: the Fisherman’s Wharf, a really great walk with lots of photos I took and then meeting up with friends for coffee at a famous coffee house in North Beach after having lunch. Then the infamous wrap-up of the flight home debacle.
Stevie Wilson