SAN FRANCISCO ATTRACTIONS

San Francisco Attractions

From its magnificent bayside vistas to the intimate cafes, San Francisco offers a visit par excellence.

Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge may be the city's two most well 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 (they never go more than 10 miles per hour), but they are one of the most fun. 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.

If you enjoy beautiful Victorian style architecture, you'll want to take a look at the "Painted Ladies" (also known as Postcard Row) of San Francicso. Located at the 700 block of Steiner Street (near Grove), these are some of the most photographed houses in the world. Here's a link to an excellent article on how best to tour the Victorian houses of San Francisco.

Opera and ballet second to none are here, but the artistic delights don't 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 something rare and delightful as well. 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.

The many aquariums and the zoo give everyone a chance 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.

The San Francisco Zoo remains one of the highlights of a visit. Over 200 species - including rare lemurs and monkeys, snow leopards and white tigers, and other exotic types - populate the 100-acres of exhibits.

Down on Fisherman's Wharf there's much more to do than eat shrimp. 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 most popular reasons for a San Francisco visit. And, justly so. Union Square houses clothing, jewelry and many other kinds of shops that make it fourth in volume in the whole country.

Dining and clubbing has been a treat in San Francisco since before it was even a city. Whether your taste is steak at world-renowned Morton's or vegetables from the Farmer's Market, there's something for everyone. And, of course, down on the pier there's more fish than even locals or residents can consume.

Spend a couple of hours touring the famed, some would say infamous, Haight Ashbury district. Once home to the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, the area still has tie-dyed T-shirts alongside Victorian homes.

For a 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.

Located in downtown San Francisco, Chinatown was the port of entry for early Taishanese and Zhongshanese Chinese immigrants from the southern Guangdong province of China from the 1850s to the 1900s.

Located in relative seclusion from downtown areas, San Francisco's Golden Gate Park is the third most visited city park in America.

If you're traveling by car, be sure to take a short drive down Lombard Street, the world's most crooked street. Enter the Street at the corner of Lombard Street and Hyde Street (click here to see the entrance in a new window). It runs for one city block and ends at the corner of Leavenworth Street and Lombard Street.

And, of course, don't leave without seeing - and walking across - the Golden Gate Bridge. 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 since the turn of the century.

You may not leave your heart here, but you're certain to take some of San Francisco's with you when you go.