Angelika We've been living here in San Francisco for what almost feels like an eternity, and over time, we've certainly found our favorite places and parks in the city. But the longer you stay in one place, the more it becomes routine to keep going to the same places over and over again.

At least, that's what we've been doing until recently, when we decided to discover something new every Saturday. This was partly prompted by Michael moving to a new job. It came with the standard two weeks per year vacation package, which is significantly less than he had accumulated over the years at the old one. That's why our weekends now need to function as mini vacations to make up for it.

And indeed, we were surprised to realize how many hidden gems we hadn't discovered yet. Who would have thought, for example, that San Francisco has a forest within its city limits? Many tourists are familiar with Golden Gate Park, but you won't find any out of towners in Mount Sutro Forest. Tucked in between the neat houses of Cole Valley and the UCSF university hospital building on Parnassus Ave, there's a 100 year old oasis featuring loop hikes lined by eukalyptus trees, some of which are more than 100 feet tall. Three quarters of the forest are owned by the University of San Francisco, and the rest belongs to the city. It was planted by Adolph Sutro, mayor of San Francisco between 1894 and 1896, who had immigrated to the United States from the city of Aachen in Germany when he was 20 years old. You'll find the name Sutro quite often in San Francisco: Mount Sutro Tower, Mount Sutro Baths, Mount Sutro Forest. Now you know why.

Since Mount Sutro Forest is located in the foggy part of town, photographers it enjoys great popularity amongst photographers who cherish its spooky and magical touch. When we strolled through on a Saturday, the sun was out, but we were surprised how few people we saw on the trails, because usually, the beautiful places in San Francisco tend to suffer from severe overcrowding. We almost forgot we still were in the center of a major metropolitan area, only every once in a while we were reminded of it by distant city noises.

Similar to the Mount Sutro Forest in San Francisco, there's another hidden gem located in the East Bay: Tilden Park. It's busier and actually can get quite crowded on the weekends, though. It's hidden behind the hills of University town Berkley and over 2,000 acres in size. It's a mix of city park with attractions like a botanic garden, a golf course, a mini steam engine track, and forest areas with hiking trails. There's also a lake called Lake Anza, which is open for swimming unless one of those recently pesky algae infestations is rampant again. Many of the hiking trails offer great views of the city of San Francisco across the Bay, and of course of the Easy Bay and the San Pablo reservoir, unless it's clouded by fog of course. We hiked both the Quarry and the Big Springs trails around mid day and enjoyed a lot of sunshine.

One of the benefits of hiking in urban areas is that there's often great restaurants nearby. After our hike in Tilden Park, we stopped at Brotzeit Restaurant in Oakland. It's beautifully located next to a small boat harbor and its outside area features authentic German Biergarten tables and benches. Also, as it's customary in Germany, customers share the tables, which is traditionally quite forein to the U.S., but nowadays every once in a while you can see this "community tables" concept pop up here and there. Those are long tables occupied by different groups of guests at the same time. During our visit, we realized that at the same time many miles away, in Munich, Germany, the Oktoberfest was in full swing, and we ordered some of the German beer on tap. To our surprise, they didn't only have the usual selection available in the U.S., but also a few local Munich brands we had never seen anywhere outside of Germany before. Food was a mix of German and American fare, as expected the usual grilled sausages, even jägerschnitzel, and of course sauerkraut, but also fish and chips and burgers. The German dishes were on the fast food side, but actually quite good.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Now legalized: Air-drying laundry
  	Top Product: The Tile Key Finder
  	Will San Francisco limit Airbnb?
  	Election Campaigns: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
  	Laws for Assisted Suicide in California
  	Royal Nuts: Hawaiian Host
  	Earthquake Proof Buildings
  	Bye bye, Perly Perlman?