So Joe went to San Francisco for Super Bowl Opening Night (nee: media day) and various other media-related events to dig up Bucs nuggets.

Got a lot of advice from readers via Twitter on what to do and where to go there. But it was a business trip. And given the insane prices for lodging there (San Francisco is worse than New York for hotels), Joe wasn’t interested in staying an extra day or two to tool around. There will always be another time.

It was Joe’s first trip to California. Heard a lot from many people about how wonderful San Francisco is. Let Joe just say the city lived up to the hype.

San Francisco is a beautiful city. It is very much like the Tampa Bay area, only with mountains. Driving in from the airport to the city, it looked as if Joe was driving the Pinellas Bayway to St. Pete Beach or driving down the Bayside Bridge. Again, the only difference was there were mountains.

The flight in was pretty cool. The last half-hour, the plane traveled over the Pacific Ocean hugging the coast heading north. Beautiful scenery. Joe swears he saw whales. What else could two or three giant moving dark blue dots be just below the surface?

Since Joe was there to work, there wasn’t much if any time to sightsee. Monday morning, set aside three hours to do just that before heading to the Super Bowl Media Center. With advice from a cabbie, took a cable car round trip from Union Square, a public transit hub in downtown San Francisco, to Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39 and back. The trip maybe takes 20 minutes each way but you ride in one of those iconic San Francisco cable cars, meandering through the heart of the city.

This is a must for any visitor. You really get a feel for the city and it is sort of like a roller coaster in super slow motion, going around all the curves and up and down the steep hills. Doing this, you really get a feel for the city and the interesting architecture. It was really something. Maybe the best $14 Joe has ever spent.

From Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39 (they are next to each other maybe a half-mile apart) you can see both the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz and the mountains and water that surrounds San Francisco. Really stunning scenery. At Pier 39, there are all kinds of seals that hang out on docks and if the weather is right, sun themselves while escaping the cold water.

Joe stayed at a rock-bottom, bare bones hotel in Nob Hill. On business trips, really only need a bed and a shower and that’s about all this place had. It was an old, early-1900s place with an elevator that had the old manual gates to enter and exit. The bathroom was half the size of the room, and that’s not a joke. Coffins are bigger.

Nob Hill is near downtown and Joe’s hotel was two blocks from Chinatown (no, didn’t have time to visit). The feel of the city is, well, different. It’s a major metropolis, sure. But it didn’t have the feel of, say, New York or Chicago or even Washington, D.C. where you get the sense of the hustle and bustle of city life. Maybe it is a California vibe but folks seemed generally relaxed, going about their daily business.

Since San Francisco is such a big city, Joe expected the place to be cold. Instead, Joe thought he was in Indianapolis. The folks there couldn’t have been friendlier. Everyone Joe encountered, folks generally were overly polite and willing to help, from patrons at the Golden Gate Tap Room to the volunteers at the media center to the cabbies to, hell, everyone Joe met. Seriously. Perfect strangers would walk up to Joe in Starbucks and start talking NFL or baseball. There was no, for lack of a better term, big city attitude even though San Francisco is one of the bigger cities in the nation.

Oh, and there is a Starbucks in that town just about every two blocks. They are all over the place. That town sure is hooked on Starbucks.

A shoutout to Uncle Vito’s Pizzeria on Bush and Powell Sts. First, it was some of if not the best pizza Joe has ever had and that’s no joke. Tried it on a whim because it was close to Joe’s hotel and it was an absolute home run.

However, Joe left his backpack there. Not realizing the error until back at the hotel, called the place and was told, “Sure, we have it. This happens all the time. We’ll hold it for you.”

Couldn’t get back there until the next day but they had it and before Joe knew it, he spent a half-hour there talking Giants baseball with the staff and ordering another pizza (not that it was a hard sell). The place is on top of a steep hill, about a 35-degree angle along a cable car line. You work up an appetite hoofing that thing. So much so that even though the eatery was three blocks from Joe’s hotel, seriously thought about cabbing it. Really. Joe isn’t all that fond of working up a sweat in the middle of the day unless on purpose.

(Met another media member at Golden Gate Tap Room who noted that his hotel was three blocks up the same hill and he was not looking forward to hiking that thing after a couple of beers.)

Super Bowl Opening Night seemed anti-climactic. Not nearly as crazy as media days of the past. Maybe because there were no Patriots or Giants in the Super Bowl for a pleasant change? Maybe because San Francisco is so damned expensive that media companies limited the travel a bit? It just seemed much more subdued. Not as many crazies as in the past and not as crowded, but holding it in an NHL arena does provide more elbow room.

Few things live up to hype. Joe had heard from relatives, friends and comrades what a wonderful city San Francisco is. So, naturally, Joe was skeptical. Instead, he was blown away by the city, the scenery and the people. It was one very poor choice of a bad meal that kept the trip from being perfect (stay away from “The Keystone” in downtown San Francisco unless you just want drinks. How any place can screw up pork shoulder and make it totally tasteless is beyond Joe’s comprehension. Even worse, got socked for $30 for the cardboard-like tasting meat. To make a pork shoulder sandwich completely tasteless, well, that’s a helluva feat.)

Joe will be back to San Francisco someday, time and money permitting. Watching a Giants game at AT&T Park is a bucket list item.

Travel add-on: You live and you learn. When the Bucs opened the 2015 season at home, the dopes who arrange Van Halen’s tour had the brainstorm to book Van Halen in Tampa the same night as the season-opener for the Bucs. Real brilliant, morons. Later in the year, while traveling to the Bucs-Texans game, on the Friday night of that same weekend, Joe was at a pivotal Rangers-Astros game when he learned Van Halen was playing that very night in Houston. Joe was peeved. Again, live and learn. Well, after booking the flight to San Francisco, on the return trip Joe had to change planes in Las Vegas. So, quickly checked who is playing in Vegas that same weekend, and — voila! — AC/DC is in Vegas! Joe calls Southwest to see how much it would cost him to change itinerary, and when learned it was just $35, well, hello AC/DC! In the photo below, sometimes, the foreground tells the story. Joe is confident Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht is jealous.

Alcatraz from Pier 39.

A San Francisco icon, a cable car, which when it hits the end of the line, has to be manually turned around by an attendant for the return trip.

A must-stop for visitors to San Francisco.

Seals and seagulls co-exist on docks at Pier 39.

Looking down a street while cruising through the city on a cable car.

One of the rolling hills in San Francisco while on a cable car.

One of the steep hills of San Francisco while gliding through the city on a cable car.

Seeing the water and the hills in the distance while sightseeing the city on a cable car.

Is this the west coast version of “The Bada Bing?” Seen while riding a cable car through San Francisco.

Quaint name for a coffee house in downtown San Francisco.

International reporters seem to have more fun at NFL events like Super Bowl Opening Night.

Not sure what this was all about during Super Bowl Opening Night.

For some reason, a live band was torturing those at Super Bowl Opening Night with tripe like “We Built This City.” Why?

Miss Universe seems petrified talking to BSPN. Understandable.

NFL Network being piped in on the JumboTron during Super Bowl Opening Night at the SAP Center in San Jose, home of the San Jose Sharks

The one and only Chris “Mad Dog” Russo talks to former Dolphins TE Marv Fleming on radio row.

Pat Kirwan listens to a point being made by co-host Jim Miller during a broadcast of “Movin’ the Chains” heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio.

If Joe didn’t know any better, he would swear Ike Taylor (right) passed gas by the reactions of SiriusXM NFL Radio “Late Hits” co-hosts Alex Marvez and Gil Brandt.

The skyline of San Francisco as seen from Pier 39.

Joe’s pit stop on the way home from San Francisco to see AC/DC in Las Vegas. Sometimes, the foreground tells the story.