cherryonion, I will most def. check out the places you mentioned, they sound delicious. As for taking it to the Ferry Building, I think that's probably where I'll go. I love browsing the fresh produce and flowers. :)

thanks for the advice! I have a few BART maps I picked up from my last trip earlier this month, I'll take a look at the those :)

You can take the amtrak all the way to the ferry building - you just take a bus over, and the buses are nice. Or pick a place you'd like to stop at - Oakland, or Berkeley, or wherever, and switch to the bart there. I like to go to Berkeley, it's a bit of a walk but it's nice. Taking amtrak is great but I've never left my car at the station overnight - I don't know how safe it is.

There is a really great, absolutely amazing Italian place near the most yummiest chocolate store of all time (http://www.xoxtruffles.com/framepage.htm), it's across the street and away from the park a little and of course I can't remember what it is called and of course there's forty Italian places right there. But there is a singing hostess there who's got a knockout voice, and you can sometimes catch her singing outside the door. They have spinach gnocci that I weep for in my sleep.

I wish I could recommend some good veggie fare but I'm sure you'll strum some up easy.

A bit of advice. I always found it easier to take the Amtrak to Richmond and then transfer to the BART in Richmond, since both trains essentially go to the same station. Otherwise, you're waiting around for the bus and a walk.

Amtrak's a good way to go to SF from Fresno, provided you are OK with walking a lot. From the train you can transfer directly to BART, and once in downtown, from BART to MUNI, and you can get pretty much wherever you need to go. Just make sure you do some planning ahead of time and grab some system maps of BART & MUNI. Oh, and be aware of the schedules.

As for the restaurants, sorry, I can't make any recommendations.