Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
707-643-0077;
www.vallejomuseum.org
;
734 Marin St; admission $5;
noon-4pm Tue-Sat)
This museum tells the story of Vallejo's shortlived history as California's state capital and
West Coast naval site.
Getting There & Away
San Francisco Bay Ferry
( 415-705-8291;
www.sanfranciscobayferry.com
;
one way adult/
child $13/6.50)
runs ferries from San Francisco's Pier 41 at Fisherman's Wharf and the
Ferry Building to Vallejo; the journey takes one hour. Discount admission and transporta-
tion packages for Six Flags are available from San Francisco. The ferry is also a gateway
THE PENINSULA
South of San Francisco, squeezed tightly between the bay and the coastal foothills, a vast
swath of suburbia continues to San Jose and beyond. Dotted within this area are Palo Alto,
Stanford University and Silicon Valley, the center of the Bay Area's immense tech in-
dustry. West of the foothills, Hwy 1 runs down the Pacific Coast via Half Moon Bay and a
string of beaches to Santa Cruz. Hwy 101 and I-280 both run to San Jose, where they con-
nect with Hwy 17, the quickest route to Santa Cruz. Any of these routes can be combined
into an interesting loop or extended to the Monterey Peninsula.
And don't bother looking for Silicon Valley on the map - you won't find it. Because sil-
icon chips form the basis of modern microcomputers, and the Santa Clara Valley - stretch-
ing from Palo Alto down through Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Santa Clara
to San Jose - is thought of as the birthplace of the microcomputer, it's been dubbed 'Silic-
on Valley.' The Santa Clara Valley is wide and flat, and its towns are essentially a string of
shopping centers and industrial parks linked by a maze of freeways. It's hard to imagine
that even after WWII this area was still a wide expanse of orchards and farms.
