San Francisco: Ferry Plaza on a Saturday, the 11:00 boat to Alcatraz, crab in Chinatown

San Francisco

1. 8:15 am1

   Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, back plaza firstSan Francisco

   Saturday 08:00-14:00 is the big market — 100-plus vendors wrapping the whole building. Tuesday and Thursday are 10:00-14:00 and only in front, along the Embarcadero, which is the prepared-food half. So on a Saturday walk straight through the building to the BACK plaza over the water: that is where the actual farmers are. The front is where the tour groups queue. Get there before 09:00 or the Roli Roti porchetta line is 25 minutes on its own. Verified 2026-09-06 against Foodwise: the market runs Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday year round; Saturday is 08:00-14:00 with more than 100 vendors around the whole building, Tuesday is 10:00-14:00 with 20-plus farms, Thursday is 10:00-14:00 with only 10 to 15 vendors and is mostly street-food lunch. This day only works on a Saturday.

   3 min walk · 150 m
2. 9:30 am2

   Inside the Ferry Building for coffee and things to carrySan Francisco

   Acme bread and Cowgirl Creamery are the two counters worth carrying something out of. Do not eat a proper lunch here — you want to be hungry in North Beach at 14:45, and Hog Island at noon is a 40-minute wait for the same oysters you can get at 11:00 on a weekday.

   9 min walk · 650 m
3. 10 am3

   Walk the Embarcadero north to Pier 33San Francisco

   1.4 flat miles past Pier 7 and the historic F-line. Do not drive: Pier 33 parking is $40-plus for the day and the streetcar takes as long as walking because it shares the road. Boarding closes 15 minutes before departure and they genuinely do not hold the boat — a missed sailing is a forfeited ticket.

   8 min by train or taxi · 5.0 km
4. 11 am4

   Alcatraz Day Tour, Pier 33San Francisco

   $47.95 adult on the day tour. The only rule that matters: tickets release 90 days ahead on alcatrazcitycruises.com and you buy them the morning they drop. Summer sailings are gone four to six weeks out; night tours go faster still. Alcatraz City Cruises is the only operator the Park Service authorises, so every third-party Alcatraz package is either the same ticket with a markup or a boat that circles the island and never lands. On the rock: the cellhouse audio tour is 45 minutes and is the best thing on the island, then the agave trail and the gardens. Two and a half hours is right; take the 13:50 back. Bring a real layer — mid-bay is ten degrees colder than the Embarcadero and windier than you have planned for. Verified 2026-09-06: the 90-day release window is right, and Alcatraz City Cruises (trading as City Experiences) is still the only NPS-authorised operator from Pier 33. NOT verified: the exact sailing grid. I could not open the operator's schedule page, so treat the 11:00 out and 13:50 back as the shape of the day rather than real departure times — take the actual times off alcatrazcitycruises.com/plan-your-visit/schedule when you book, and hang the rest of the day off whatever sailing you get.

   8 min by train or taxi · 3.2 km
5. 2:45 pm5

   Late lunch at Tony's Pizza NapoletanaSan Francisco

   Twelve pizza styles on one menu, but only 73 Margherita pizzas a day — that one comes out of the 900-degree wood oven and they stop when the dough runs out, usually early evening. Coming off the 13:50 boat and eating at 14:45 is the whole trick: no reservations for parties under six, and the 18:30 wait is 90 minutes on the sidewalk.

   5 min walk · 350 m
6. 3:45 pm6

   City Lights, then a drink at Vesuvio across the alleySan Francisco

   The Poetry Room is upstairs and the window bench is the point of the visit. Vesuvio is directly across Jack Kerouac Alley, has been pouring since 1948, and serves no food — which is why you ate first. Caffe Trieste two blocks up if you would rather have coffee than a drink.

   6 min walk · 450 m
7. 4:30 pm7

   Filbert Steps up to Coit TowerSan Francisco

   Climb the wooden Filbert Steps from Sansome — cottage gardens, the wild parrots, and no parking problem, because the Coit Tower lot is a 40-minute crawl that people sit in rather than walk ten minutes. The 1934 WPA murals in the base are free to look at; the fee is only the elevator to the observation deck, and the view from the terrace outside costs nothing and is almost the same. CORRECTED 2026-09-06: this stop used to start at 17:00, which misses the elevator in every month of the year. Coit Tower opens at 10:00 and closes at 18:00 April-October and 17:00 November-March, and the last elevator ticket sells one hour before closing — so the cutoff is 17:00 in summer and 16:00 in winter. Moved to 16:30 so the summer window works; if you are here between November and March you need to be at the door by 15:45. Elevator is $11 non-resident, $8 San Francisco resident (was listed here as $15). Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

   11 min walk · 850 m
8. 7 pm8

   Salt-and-pepper crab at R&G LoungeSan Francisco

   Book the upstairs room; the ground floor is walk-in chaos with a queue on Kearny. Order the salt-and-pepper crab — market price, usually $50-60 for a whole one, and it is the dish the entire restaurant is built around — plus greens and rice, and stop there. Ten minutes downhill from Coit Tower through the Chinatown alleys, which is the right way to arrive.