San Francisco - The Fairmont Hotel, Cable Car Museum, Tonga Room

The Fairmont is one of the grand dames of hotels in San Francisco. Sisters Theresa Fair Oelrichs and Virginia Fair Vanderbilt decided to build an enormous hotel on San Francisco’s Nob Hill. The sisters used the family name (Fair) and the hotel's location on top of a hill (Mont) to create the name Fairmont. Finished just before the 1906 earthquake, it was so solidly built it survived the earthquake, but not the subsequent fire, so wasn't ready to open until 1907.

Dedicated in honor of their wealthy father, Senator James Graham Fair, the two hoped that the business would become a renowned local icon, even though at the time, Nob Hill wasn't considered centrally located.

That's where the cable cars come in. The Fairmont is actually at the intersection of three famous cable car lines, so back in 1907, you could take a cable car to the Fairmont. (Or it might have been 1908, because all but one cable car was destroyed during that 1906 earthquake.) In any event, it was the cable cars that made The Fairmont easily accessible.

Down a very steep hill from the Fairmont you can see the workings of the cable car system at the Cable Car Museum. It is really just the warehouse that contains the sheaves and gears and wires that power the cable cars, and they've just opened it to the public for viewing. The gears run continuously, allowing the cars to chug up those impossible hills at a top speed of 9.5 miles an hour. Here you can see Steven looking down at the machinery that drives the cars. You can also learn about the "gripman" who operates each car, using a single break between the front seats. If you walk along any street with cable car tracks, you'll hear the cable vibrating underground.It's an ingenious system, that has now been in operation 150 years. Of the original 23 lines, three remain, all clogged with tourists enjoying this newfangled carriage that replaced the horse.

To test this whole system out, we took the Mason line from its starting point at Taylor, close to Fisherman's Wharf, back up to the Fairmont. We watched as three transit workers turned our cable car around on a wooden turnstile, then we all boarded Car #23, originally built in 1890, and last refurbished in 2018. We had the luck of sitting across from an elderly cable car enthusiast who told us he first rode the cable cars in 1939 for a dime (that's 84 years ago people!). He pointed out a single story house built after the 1906 earthquake, then gave us the skinny on "the sling." Around Mason and Washington, the car turns and grips a new cable underground. The gripman has to gain enough speed up the hill to make the turn without stalling, gliding until the new cable is gripped. I can report he did just fine. (And to think they were going to take down these 19th century marvels in the 1950s!)

Back at the Fairmont, we also visited the delightfully kitschy Tonga Room. According to Wikipedia, it was named after the South Pacific nation of Tonga, and opened in 1945. The Tonga Room replaced the Terrace Plunge, an indoor swimming pool that was installed in the Fairmont in 1929.

The pool was transformed into the Tonga Room's lagoon, with periodic tropical rainstorms added in 1953.

We came for dinner and their original Mai Tai, formulated in 1944. A live band played cover songs on a boat in the middle of the lagoon/pool. I expected more Don Ho tunes, but after imbibing that Mai Tai, I realized I didn't really care and it was all good.