A Dash to France? No, It's San Francisco!

 
We are up in The City after helping a dear friend celebrate her birthday.  The weather is very warm - much more so than Pacific Grove, two hours south of here.  Fleet Week is going on and The Blue Angels were practicing right overhead as we arrived this afternoon, ripping the sky apart and stopping people in the middle of the sidewalks and streets with their fingers in their ears.  It can be pretty distracting to see F-18s doing vertical loops in the distance as you are watching for freeway offramp signs in rush hour traffic.

Two blocks up from Union Square on Bush Street is Cornell Hotel de France.  It offers a complementary American-style breakfast, wifi, and a unique San Francisco-French style.  That is to say it's a Victorian six-story hotel built in about 1895 or so.  Many guests are French, speaking their native language with the proprietress who is also French.  

The elevator to our top floor is a funky old thing with an iron grille through which you can see and smell the grease and cables working.  "It was built in 1897. I wasn't here then, but that's what I'm told," said the proprietor dryly as he carried my suitcase up to my room for me.

All the art is by French artists and a statue of Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) stands in the hallway.  The hotel's restaurant is named after her.  Recommended as a clean, perfectly adequate and quirky place to stay in the heart of the tourist area of the city.  Je l'aime.