Pigeon

San Francisco is surrounded on three sides by bodies of water: the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate strait, and the San Francisco Bay. The city is laid out in a grid over some 40 hills, reaching heights of nearly 1,000 feet; this sometimes originates wide variations in temperature and sky conditions in different areas of town. The Pacific air keeps the temperatures generally moderate, rarely ranging above 75 degrees or below 45 degrees, leading San Francisco to be named “the air conditioned city.” The climate is much seemed to coastal areas on the Mediterranean.

Despite temperatures remain relatively continuous; there are two definite seasons wet and dry with more than 80 percent of annual acceleration taking place between November and March. Perhaps the most distinctive qualities of the local climate are the banks of fog that can roll in off the ocean, instantaneously covering various areas of the city, and then disappear quickly. The fog is most frequent on summer mornings, coming off the cooler ocean and backing up against the hills, but it also comes from the colder inland areas during the winter.

San Francisco has the best places to explore as visiting a look around of the neighbourhoods. Its colourful and cosmopolitan absolute of San Francisco charms to visitors. Its 1.7 mile long Golden Gate Bridge is one of America’s top ten construction marvels, don’t forget to see it. Celebrating its 65th anniversary, this graceful span (which connects to Marin County) is an unforgettable icon to drive, walk, or cycle across.

The Golden Gate Park, within its thousand-plus acres are gardens, lakes, bridal and walking paths, Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, and the tranquil Japanese Tea Garden, authentically part of the 1894 Fair Exhibit of World. Tea drinkers ignore a waterfall and pond framed by fragrant wisteria.

The best museum of San Francisco named, the Exploratorium is a fun and entertained, quirky museum of science, art, and human perception that characterize some 650 exhibits. Its pitch-black Tactile Dome may inspire you to approach challenges in a whole new way.

Fisherman’s Wharf, you can get the famous Dungeness crab. You can eat the best crab all year round but they’re best when they’re in season, which runs from September/October to about April.

A short ferry ride on the Blue and Gold Fleet will carry you to Alcatraz Island, and the self guide brochure directs you from the former penitentiary’s dock to its cell-house. Evening tours, led by park guides, are also available on his island of no escape in the San Francisco Bay.

The cable cars of San Francisco work seven days a week along century-old routes. For an exclusive tour of the city, take the California Street line, which runs from the Financial District, through Chinatown, and over Nob Hill. The Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines both terminate near Fisherman’s Wharf, board in San Francisco wherever you see a brown and white stop sign.

A dragon draped archway at the confluence of Bush and Grant streets announces the access to Chinatown in San Francisco. Streets teem with fish and vegetable stalls, herbal shops, temples, and eateries. Museums include the Chinese Historical Society of America and Chinese Culture Center.

If you can explore for a short while, hop a Red-and-White Ferry to Sausalito from Fisherman’s Wharf. The ride takes one half hour. The panoramic view of San Francisco Bay is spectacular, and Sausalito’s sunny, inviting outdoor cafés and small shops overlooking the city are utterly charming.

The elegance of San Francisco lies in the sum of its parts: each neighbourhood has a unique personality and attraction, and together they make this city one of the best places on Earth to wander around for an afternoon. San Francisco is a relatively small city, only about seven square miles that are simply explored in a few days.

Nevertheless locals tend to elude Fisherman’s Wharf because of its tourist traps; it still produces one of the best views of the bay, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge available in the city. If you skip to the expensive restaurants, you can snag yourself a heaping plate of fresh steamed crab from one of a dozen or so street vendors; then grab a bench anywhere along the piers, enjoy your crab, and take it all in.

If you walk toward the Golden Gate Bridge, far from Fisherman’s Wharf and through Van Ness Avenue, you’ll find one of the best shopping districts in the city, the Tony Marina District, where sorority-girls-turned-publicists and the fraternity-boys-turned-investment-bankers who love them drop hundreds on designer duds, gourmet fusion, and imported liquor. San Francisco is the place where you can find the best of everything, with the selected arts and entertainment, music and nightlife, restaurants and shopping.

San Francisco nightlife is as interesting as San Francisco, and San Francisco bars, clubs and lounges are located in different areas. For electronic music clubs, hip hop and chill art lounges, it is a good idea to go to SOMA of San Francisco. For bar-hopping with hipsters and rockers, Mission district rules. More elegant (Nevertheless just as debaucherous) bars can be found in the Marina district. Gay-friendly bars and clubs exist all over San Francisco, if you’re looking for the huge, pumping nightclubs of New York, Chicago, or Miami. San Francisco offer its own unique and completely entertaining brand of nightlife, dominated primarily by live entertainment.

San Francisco has a festival for every genre of music like indie rock, hip hop, jazz and bluegrass. In addition to a few huge stadium venues, there are the dozen or so medium-size concert venues, perfect for seeing anything from a big national star to your favorite local band, also bars and pubs offer live music shows of week.

San Francisco offers opera and ballet into piano bars, hipster hangouts and Irish pubs too; San Francisco boasts a phenomenal assortment of after-dark entertainment, often on the colourful side. After all, San Francisco is the home of Bimbo’s 365 Club, launched in 1931 on Market Street pouring gin into coffee cups (while patrons gazed at girls swimming nude in a fish tank behind the bar), and holding forth since 1951 on Columbus Avenue, now drawing crowds with rock and jazz. Overall, the range stretches from avant-garde and expensive to basic budget.

In a city as hip and youthful as San Francisco, nightlife often functions as a mean for gathering and meeting friends. The Mandarin Lounge caters to professionals, granting well-mixed drinks and private conversation. In addition upscale, but in a more romantic vein, is the Empire Plush Room, which hosts vocalists, pianists and cabaret performers in tasteful environs.

Note:
All bars are required to stop serving alcohol at 2:00 a.m. Under California Law, smoking is not permitted in bars and restaurants. Also drinking age in California is 21 years and older; laws are strictly enforced.

San Francisco shopping offers something for everyone, here is one of the best shopping in the world, so it is no surprise that tourists want to spend some time and money in San Francisco’s varied shopping centers, boutiques, districts and malls. Union Square, Hayes Valley, upper Fillmore, the Mission, Sacramento Street, Chinatown and downtown’s San Francisco Shopping Center offer a unique style and art with one-of-a-kind shops, each mall and neighbourhood with a distinctive impression suited to any shopper’s mood.

San Francisco’s Union Square Shopping District has long been frequented as a shopping destination, particularly in December, when the square is transformed into a winter wonderland. In recent years, the city has been trying to catch up with fashion-forward New York and Los Angeles, with more and more great independent boutiques cropping up in the Mission, Hayes Valley, North Beach, and the Marina, and two successful San Francisco Fashion Weeks.

Extravagant design palaces as Limn and Gumps are beautiful places to find that perfect something for your well-to-do friend who has everything. For those on more modest budgets, specialized local boutiques as Zinc Details, Friend, Nest Egg, and Little Otsu (they stock vegan-friendly stationery, bags and gifts) carry the work of local designers (OhBoy stationery, Jill Bliss journals, Heath ceramics, and Dwell sheets). Add the thrift and vintage furniture stores of the Mission to the mix, and there’s no shortage of stores to look for a perfect gift or unique home accent. Also San Francisco is home to a number of unique and amazing music stores, not the least of which is the world-renowned Amoeba records in the Haight.

Shopping Areas as Castro Street, Chestnut Street, Fillmore Street, Haight Street, Hayes Valley, Union Square, Union Street, Valencia Street and Upper Grant Avenue. You can find creative novelty gifts, Gorgeous Italian teapots, handmade cards, phallic keychains, gourmet foods and leather pants, an abundance of unique shops, grocers and florists. A chic boutiques, handmade gifts and elegant house wares, although there are a few vintage clothing stores, etc.

An excellent restaurant in San Francisco can be a real taste treat, but can also be enough expensive. An occasional restaurant is often even more fun. Maybe the coolest thing about San Francisco food is the amount of ethnic restaurants.

San Francisco has impressive restaurants. Unless you stick to the tourist places you see on the tops of the taxis. Of course, you can make any romantic night out more famous with a trip in a limousine and forget about parking hassles.

Eastern Bakery is the classical and oldest Chinese bakery in San Francisco’s Chinatown and dates back from 1924, the place is faithful to a classical Chinese look and transports you across the ocean and backs a century just by walking in. The emphasis here is not on the design but on the content: a tasty cookie is more important than a complete Chinese seal on eat.

Japantown in San Francisco could be less known than other ethnic quarters, one of its attractions are the many Japanese restaurants at the shopping centers. A fierce competition pushes the prices down and creates a wonderful food quality.

Across the bay, in Fruitvale of Oakland, Saigon Wrap offers a Vietnamese meal. All the classics food is available here: pho noodle soup and typical Vietnamese sandwiches are the hits and closely resemble the originals. Aware the tastes of their customers, they serve Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk and cappuccino as well; tapioca desserts, and smoothies. Not all the attractions are Asian; next to Saigon Wrap is Powderface, a place specializing in New Orleans taste Beignets.

The best way of getting around to San Francisco is to make a combination of several options, if you plan to use public transportation often as buses, cable cars and trolley. It is a good idea to buy a Muni “Passport”. This passport is available for 1, 3 and 7 days.

From the Airport
There are three airport options for San Francisco. The first is the SFO (San Francisco International Airport) is the main airport of the city, the second in the south of San Francisco. Oakland International Airport (OAK) is situated in the East Bay. The third is the SJC (Mineta San Jose International Airport).

Car Rental
Car Rentals as Hertz, Avis, Dollar, Enterprise, Budget, Alamo and The National are situated in the San Francisco Airport Rental Car Center, which you can arrive via AirTrain, on the Blue Line. AirTrains operate 24 hours a day and provides a good service throughout the airport.

Taxis
You can take a taxi from the San Francisco Airport to most locations in the city. Taxis are expensive in San Francisco; the prices are between $40 and $50. The taxis are located outside each terminal’s arrival area in the lower level. Since public transportation doesn’t serve certain areas well (the Richmond, Pacific Heights, Nob Hill, North Beach, or the Marina), travellers to these areas would plan on taking a cab to and from the airport.

Public Transportation
The Powell Street is the most convenient stop for who is using the BART (subway) system and the Muni Metro. From BART transfer stations, you can take the Muni, a light rail transit system, which will get you to Duboce Triangle/Upper Market, South of Market/China Basin, Inner and Outer Sunset, Noe Valley, Cole Valley, and the Haight.

Bicycling
San Francisco is a dream city for cycler. The hills are in the middle, but flat terrain surrounds the town, including the entire length of the Great Highway, which parallels the ocean.

Rush hour: Rush hour on the city from San Francisco Airport (SFO) and San Jose Airport (SJC) starts at around 3:30 pm.

The classic development of San Francisco, its tourist attractions includes breathtaking vistas, entertained architecture and copious amounts of the city’s quirky character. Many head down to Fisherman’s Wharf for a bowl of chowder or to watch barking seals previously waiting in line for a tour of Alcatraz Island, the infamous federal prison. Nearby, the acclaimed theatrical world of Teatro Zinzanni is famous between locals and tourists.

In San Francisco there isalways something to do, as in all big cities, in addition to the cultural outlets you’d expect in any city, San Francisco offers an impressive number of outdoor activities, and the city’s diverse population makes for a wide variety of festivals and celebrations throughout the year as well.

In the summer, there’s a diverse street festival practically every weekend. Don’t astonish to see the same group of food booths, bands, and artisans again and again as the festival rotates to diverse neighbourhoods.

San Francisco is home to two professional sports teams like the NFL San Francisco 49ers, who play football at Monster Park, and the MLB Giants, who play baseball in a precious new stadium in China Basin, called “Giants’ Stadium.”

San Francisco has popularity as an artsy city, and for good reason. Four important art museums, a handful of smaller museums, and dozens of galleries present a dizzying schedule of exhibits ranging from world-famous stars as Matthew Barney at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to up-and-coming local artists at the tiny but amazing Jack Hanley Gallery in the Mission.

San Francisco airports, as all airports in North America, have improved their security operations. Travellers, therefore, should be patient and allow plenty of time when arriving or leaving. San Francisco has an extensive network of buses, ferries and light rail systems that will take you to practically any destination of your choice throughout of San Francisco.

For traffic and public transit information, call free TravInfo, they operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, anywhere in the 415, 408, 510 and 707 area codes to give you the best information about buses, trains, bikes, ferries, carpools, road conditions, park and ride.

Arriving by Air
San Francisco International Airport is the primary airport of San Francisco.

Arriving by Car

if you drive from Los Angeles area, I-5 is the fastest and manageable direct route but there is also a scenic coast road, Route 1. I-5 stretches all the way from Seattle to San Diego so is the best option when travelling to San Francisco from starting points on the west coast. San Francisco is also easily reached by Route 101, the north-south thoroughfare and Route 80, the transcontinental highway from the east.

Getting Around San Francisco

Once in San Francisco, there are a diversity of transportation options all of them are regular, comfortable and reliable. Buses, taxis and shuttle buses are fully visible with well marked pick up and set down points, both downtown and beyond. For reaching the dizzy heights of the city it is almost necessary to take a ride on the trolley buses that continually scale the almost vertical gradients of the San Francisco hills.

San Francisco is located at the northern end of the San Francisco peninsula, in San Francisco County. It is the fourth enormous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose. Several islands are part of the city, such as Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

This city has 42 hills in the urban area, which are defined as elevations over 1000 feet, such as Nob Hill, Pacific Heights and Telegraph Hill. It is one of the most beautiful American cities and has been named the world’s superior city twice by Conde Nast, with a 2005 population of 739,426. San Francisco is the second city most populated in the United States.

The San Francisco Gold Rush in 1848, improve the city into a period of rapid growth. After being devastated by earthquake in 1906, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt. San Francisco is renowned for its often chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, an eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture, and its peninsular location surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.