See ya later San Fran …

Today was out last day in Oakland and we just wanted a casual day. We caught an Uber to Mountain Hill Cemetery in Piedmont. It is absolutely beautiful. There is the cemetery, a crematorium and many Mausoleums.

There are family crypts in Mausoleums, and family plots with their own Mausolems and there are gorgeous chapels, fountains and many, many angels.

The park was designed by the same architect who designed Central Park in New York (Frederick Olmstead) and has burials from 1863 onwards.

A lot of the plots have local history and the families are famous! Here a few famous names:

• Captain William Shorey – only black whaling Captain!
• Dr Cloe Buckel – first women M.D. – she became a Dr after her nursing degree
• John Hays – first Sheriff of San Francisco & also a surveyor
• Anthony Cabot – hydraulic mining founder, and built the Cabot Observatory
• D. Ghirardelli – chocolate magnate who moved his family graves to Mountain View

The whole cemetery is just gorgeous and we spent 3hrs wandering around checking it out.

We also watched a private internment of ashes for a war hero. The US Sailors had the most fascinating OCD folding the flag – loved that, although did feel a bit like a voyeur! (You will be pleased to know that we did not gate crash the after party).

There are fabulous views back to San Fran from Millionaire Row which is called that because of its spectacular views.

We walked back down the main Piedmomt Road and had lunch at Barney’s Burgers. I had the bacon, mushroom and feta rocket salad and Colin had a hot dog. Can’t have burgers for lunch every day!

From there we caught an Uber (loving this) to Jack London Square. There were markets on that had all this gorgeous stuff, but with us leaving to Las Vegas tomorrow there was no time to get anything shipped, so no shopping for me.

Had a beer in a great bar called Plank, that had a wonderful outdoor area, kids playground to the side and a pétanque court. Obviously a great place for everyone to meet and soak up the atmosphere. We enjoyed people watching from our Cape Cod chairs and the beer (green devil lager) was pretty good too. It was hot in the sun, but blowing a gale – check out those flags!