Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
2
The Lay of
the Land
There's only one San Francisco: The city's top
neighborhoods and the best ways to get around
T HERE ARE PRECIOUS FEW AMERICAN CITIES WHERE IT ' S POSSIBLE TO SEE
all the wonders it has to offer without sitting your butt in a single car. New
Orleans, maybe. New York City, Washington, D.C., and, well, that's almost the
whole list. Add to that San Francisco. Because of the services of Muni buses,
BART trains, and a series of tram lines, you can literally roll off the airplane, take
a train to your hotel, and hit the town without ever going belly-up to the rental
desk at Hertz. It's a beautiful thing.
The city occupies the hilly tip of a peninsula that juts northward around the
west side of the bay that bears the city's name. Like ancient Venice, San Francisco
is a world unto itself; the borders of its county are also the borders of the city, a
rarity in America. To the west of the city lies the Pacific Ocean, wild and huge and
the source of the area's unpredictable weather. To the east, the enormous San
Francisco Bay, which, along with the interconnected San Pablo Bay, spans some
1,500 square miles. North of the city is a feisty stretch of water known as the
Golden Gate; the tidal volume of both bays rush through this narrow channel,
making it one of the most dangerous bodies of water in America—a perfect loca-
tion, in other words, for a prison such as Alcatraz. (But, contrary to urban legend,
great white sharks do not live in the Bay—it's not salty enough for them.)
Most of the oldest stuff in the city, all of the skyscrapers, and most of the
action are located on the northeast of the peninsula. As you head west, neighbor-
hoods tend to be more recently built, so that by the time you reach Divisadero
Street, the westward areas might be best described as bedroom communities,
although a few quiet pockets of ethnic enclaves exist. Neighborhoods such as Sea
Cliff (mansions for the rich, such as Robin Williams), Richmond (Clement Street
is like a mini Chinatown, and not to be confused with the crime-ridden
Richmond across the Bay), and Sunset (yuppies, a small-town feel) are at the
Pacific Ocean end of things. They're only about 5 miles from the Ferry Building,
but as there is little to attract a tourist aside from the odd cafe or restaurant, they
aren't covered in depth in this guide. Locals will vigorously defend these parts of
town, and as is the case with many neighborhoods, there is much to recommend
them, but there's nothing there that's truly world-class.
San Francisco is connected to the northern headlands of the Golden Gate,
which are located in Marin (Ma- rin ) County, by the legendary Golden Gate
Bridge (p. 93)—and by no other vehicular crossing. The roadway is part of I-101,
which cuts a north-south line through the western fringe of the city via the
Presidio, a longtime military enclave that has been preserved as a hilly, forest-
sheathed park. To the east, the city links with the major city of Oakland and the
Search WWH ::




Custom Search