San Francisco
Sights to See
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Jewel of the West Coast
From its stunning bayside vistas to its many intimate cafes, San
Francisco offers a visit par excellence whether it's your first time
there or your hundredth.
Fisherman's Wharf
and the Golden Gate Bridge
may most certainly be the city's two best known attractions - and well
deserving of their reputations - but the city at the lower edge of
Northern California offers much more.
Rides on the famed cable cars
may not be the fastest way to get around the city, (they never go more
than 10 miles per hour), but they have to be one of the most fun ways
to see the city. Up and down the steep hills near Pier 39 and through Union Square,
they provide a wonderful glance back at history while seeing the latest
sights.
The visitor to San Francisco will find opera and ballet second to none,
but the artistic delights don't have to stop there. The Legion of Honor
and the M.H. de Young museum provide all the fine visual art one could take in during one vacation.
But the city offers young scientists as well something rare and
delightful. The Exploratorium
inside the Palace of
Fine Arts has over 650 interactive and hands-on exhibits. Ranging from tornadoes you can touch
to electrical experiments you shouldn't, kids and adults both will find
something of interest here. My kids had a ball there many
years ago, and many improvements and updates have been made since then.
The many aquariums
and the zoo give everyone a broad range of chances to experience the
wonders of nature close up and even underneath. The Aquarium of the Bay
offers views under the bay of local species, while on top seals offer
applause to the penguins.
To many, the San Francisco Zoo remains one of the highlights of their
visit. Over
200 species - including rare lemurs and monkeys, snow leopards and
white tigers, and other exotic types - populate the 100-acres of
exhibits.
Meanwhile, down on Fisherman's
Wharf there's a lot more to do than just munch on shrimp and
drink cocktails..
Ghiradelli Square
houses the famous chocolate factory and ice cream
shop that continues to pack them in a hundred years after its founding.
Shopping is still one of the absolutely fabulous and most popular
reasons for any San Francisco
visit. And, justly so, I might add! Union Square
houses clothing, jewelry and many
other kinds of shops that make it the fourth in volume for the whole
country.
Dining and clubbing has been a treat in San Francisco since before it
even thought about becoming a city.
It doesn't matter if your taste is steak at world-renowned Morton's
or vegetables from the Farmer's
Market, there's something for everyone.
And, as you would expect, down on the pier there's more fish than even
locals or
residents can consume.
You must spend a couple of hours touring the famed, and some would say
infamous,
Haight Ashbury
district. Once home to the Grateful
Dead and Janis
Joplin, the area still has hippie style, tie-dyed T-shirts
alongside stately Victorian homes.
For an upclose view of real infamy, take a tour of Alcatraz.
The prison, empty
since 1963, still retains its grim allure. Not for nothing was it
called, by inmates and guards alike, "The Rock".
And, of course, you cannot leave without seeing - and walking across -
the Golden Gate Bridge.
Opened to traffic on May 28, 1937, this magnificent orange-vermilion structure fully deserves its reputation as THE symbol of San Francisco. One of the
world's largest - and most beautiful - bridges it continues to attract thousands of visitors, just as it has for almost a century.
After your visit, you may not be able to say "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", but you're certain to take some of San Francisco with you wherever you go from there.
Sights to see in San Francisco include:
Legion of Honor
Alcatraz
Aquariums
Cable Cars
Chinatown
Fisherman's Wharf
Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Park
Haight Ashbury
Science and Nature
Union Square
Home Business Ideas
World Ventures Travel Business
The Lure of San Francisco - a Travel Book
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