San Francisco Is Home to Many Super-Rich, Life in the Former Hippie Metropolis Is Sweet and Expensive. The Longing for Peace, Love, and Flower Power Is Strong. A “Love Tour” in a VW Bus Brings Back a Piece of the Past.
“Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles plays from the speakers. It helps: The morning fog over the San Francisco Bay clears. Amidst the harmonies, tour guide Allan Graves shares information about the city where the son of a Canadian and Nicaraguan spent almost his entire life, born in Costa Rica, loving both the city and the music of the hippie era. Another passion of his is vintage VW buses. Decorated with portraits of Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, and an image of the Golden Gate Bridge, his bus climbs the steep Russian Hill almost at a walking pace. Through side streets, views of the bay emerge, with Alcatraz Island faintly visible in the mist.
At the top, gravity becomes the vintage bus’s friend. With momentum, it descends the serpentine Lombard Street while Otis Redding sings “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay.” People outside stop, wave, and reach for their smartphones to capture the colourful bus “Sunshine.”
Participants of the “Love Tour” not only visit sights; “Sunshine” turns them into attractions themselves. At the wheel, Allan shares stories about where baseball legend and Monroe’s husband Joe DiMaggio went to high school, which streets were spared from fire and destruction during the Great Quake of 1906, and what is considered the best place in the USA to make acquaintances — a summer-overgrown lawn on Marina Road, not coincidentally one of the pricier areas in the expensive city. Then he hands it over to Scott McKenzie: “If You’re Going To San Francisco, Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair,” he sings. As if it were that simple.
