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| USA :: USA Travel Guide |
USA Travel Guide |
| USA - Places of Interest |
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| CANADA - Places of Interest |
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SAN FRANCISCO |
 One of the USA’s most attractive cities, San Francisco’s hilly streets provide some gorgeous glimpses of the Bay and its famous bridges. The city has an atmosphere of genteel chic mixed with offbeat innovation and a self-effacing quality so blatantly missing from brassy New York and Plastic LA.
The treats of San Francisco’s are not just for locals. The basic pleasures of life here – wonderful food, sparkling nightlife and those glorious views are there for everyone. Watch the white fog fill the Golden Gate as the sunset lights up the windows across the bay, and prepare to leave your heart.
The best way to explore San Francisco’s neighbourhoods is on foot. A leisurely stroll through North Beach, with its relaxed European charm, leads smack into Bustling Chinatown. A hike up hoity-toity Nob Hill segues down to the troubl3ed Tenderloin. South of Market, a busy warehouse district during the day, transforms into nightclub central at night. The Mission District is varied: many of its streets are latino enclaves, but a continuous flow of hip young invaders have redefined many of the district’s crossroads. The nearby Castro was claimed by gay men in the 1970s, and its remains predominantly gay today< projecting an assured, almost mainstream air.
ATRACTIONS
Chinatown
Chinatown is densely packed and colorful. There are some tacky curio shops, but the 30,000 Chinese – most of whom speak Cantonese live in a tightly knit, distinctly un-Western community. It’s a great place for casual wandering through narrow alleys, where on quiet afternoons you can hear the clack of mahyjong tiles from behind screen doors.
 The most colorful time to visit Chinatown is during the Chinese New Year in late January or early February, with a parade and fireworks and other festivities.
Downtown
San Francisco’s densely populated downtown is squeezed into the hilly northeastern corner of the peninsula. The often dramatic cityscape came about because the streets were laid out as if their planners had never so much as glanced at the city’s topography. They simply dropped a grid patern onto the steeply undulating terrain, and the result is that streets often climb or drop at ridiculously steep gradients. It makes parking hazardous, breads bicycle messengers of superhuman strength and provides a hairy setting for car chase scenes in movies.
Union Square is San Francisco’s tourist centre. It’s mishmash of glitzy shops and hotels, flower vendors and homeless people. Cable car rumble down the west side of the square; try looking down Hyde St towards Aquatic Park, down Washington St to chinatown and the Financial District, or down California St from Nob Hill. And if you’re just go to ride the elevator to the Top of the Mark, the famous view bar at the top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel.SoMa (‘South of Market St’) is a combination of lifty office building spilling over from the Financial District, fancy condos along the Embarcadero, a touristy gallery and museum precinct around Yerba Buena Gardens and the late night entertainment scene along Folsom and 11tth Sts.
North Beach
North Beach is sandwiched between Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s lively stretch of strip joints, bars, cafes and restaurants that styarted as the city’s Italian quarter and gave birth to the beats in the 1950s,. City Light Bookstore is here, at the corner of Columbus Ave and Jack Kerouac Alley. The neighborhood is hemmed in on the east by Telegraph Hill, which features tree-shaped stairways that ramble down the steep eastern face of the hill, and Coil Tower. One of the city’s most famous landmarks, the tower is a primer spot to let loose your postcard-vista voyeuris. The 3600 views from here are superb.
 San Francisco Pay
San Francisco’s bay is curiously shy. It always seems to be around the corner, glimpsed in the distance, seen from afar. It is spanned by bridges, surrounded by cities and suede hills, dotted with sails and crisscrossed by fast-moving ferries. The bay is the largest inlet on the California coast, stretching about 60mi (110km) in length and up to 12mi (29km) in width.
The beautiful Golden Gate Bridge crosses the 2mi (3km) mouth of the bay. Completed in 1937, the bridge remains the symbol of the city despite competition from modern constructions. At the time of its completion, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world and the 746 ft (224m) suspension towers were higher than any structure west of New York City. The Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco and Oakland, is five times as long as the Golden Gate Bridge, carries far more traffic and predates it by six months, but it’s never had the same iconic fame.
The bay’s other attractions include Alcatraz Island, which operated as an ‘escape-proof’ prison from 1933 to 1963. Al Capone, ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly and robert Stroud, the ‘birdman of Alcatraz,’ were among the prison’s unsavory residents. North of Alcatraz, Angel Island served as an interment camp during WWII; It’s now a Popular place for walking, hiking, biking, picnics and camping. Both islands are accessible by ferry from Fisherman’s Wharf and the Embarcadero. |
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