San Francisco As I Like It

I have been a San Franciscan for 18 years and I can say that I know the city intimately. I have been intrigued and enchanted by this relatively small, but vibrant and diverse city from the moment I descended here.

Before I chose real estate as a career, I spent my time exploring the many socio - cultural and economic facets of my adoptive city, becoming an accidental urban anthropologist.

San Francisco can make you feel like you are in large, dense world class city, but also gives you a cozier, more intimate neighborhood feeling. Every neighborhood has its own little downtown, and just as in a village (some neighborhood's main shopping streets are called ' villages') community life is important.

As San Franciscans, we don’t have to get in the car and drive to downtown for best restaurants, shopping or parks. We like to walk to the grocery store, we love the challenge of hiking a good hill in order to get to a favorite restaurant for a rewarding dinner, bike to the children’s school or use an electric scooter or skateboard to our latest start-up venture.

I tell my friends who are visiting from other world walkable cities: well, it’s kind of European in structure and density, but different. I would say San Francisco has the perfect cross combination and vibrancy of a city where West meets East, without the overwhelming size of a mega city. In itself, San Francisco is a city of merely over 880,000 people, but the entire metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area has over 7 million inhabitants.

I can step out of my home and admire the San Francisco Bay view, but I can also reach about a dozen or more of technology companies and a medical campus by foot. San Franciscans are known for faithfully recycling and composting food scraps, having strong civic and activism attitudes and setting national and global standards and constantly meeting in coffee shops for ‘plotting’ their next start up to fix world’s problems. They love to brunch and they will patiently and voluntarily wait in long lines for the city’s best cooked eggs over avocado toast or maple syrup bacon or Chinese dumplings…as long as they wait alongside friends who they can also share food with.

While there are many places to see if you visit for the first time and I won’t talk about all of them, I will be partial and tell you what I like to do again and again as a local, without ever getting bored of doing the same thing.

VIEWS & NATURE

This is the city of prized views, from different angles and vistas.

Golden Gate Bridge is the most iconic landmark. I never get tired of crossing it on foot or by car, rain, shine or fog and to be honest most of the time, fog. Make sure you have a wind jacket or warm enough jacket and comfortable shoes. Once on the other side of the bridge, you can stop in the Marin Headlands for a breathtaking view of the city.

Bay Bridge is a sight to be seen too, especially at night, with its twinkling light installation. A stroll along Embarcadero and ferry Building could be magical in a balmy night.

Cable Car -The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last manually operated cable car system. An icon of San Francisco, the cable car system forms part of the intermodal urban transport of the city. In case you are wondering, yes, there are few San Franciscans who might still use it as a daily public transportation. But most of the time, this form of transportation is reserved for the joy and wonderment of tourists, who might have more time to enjoy the ride and frequent stops.

Lombard Street where eight sharp turns are said to make it the most crooked street in the world.

Twin Peaks-Perched on a 925 feet height pair of hills, this is one of the best observation points in the city, with views from Golden Gate Bridge to Bay Bridge and San Francisco downtown skyline.

Coit Tower is a 210-foot tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, offering panoramic views over the city and the bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco. While descending from the Coit Tower, be sure to stop for fortifying drinks and food in the city’s historical Italian neighborhood, North Beach.

Take a ferry ride just across the bay to the charming, Mediterranean flair towns of Sausalito or Tiburon. We like to lovingly compare them to the Amalfi Coast to better explain their charm. You will be rewarded to a beautiful view of San Francisco, while enjoying the shopping and restaurants and cafés scene.

Golden Gate Park -Most visitors are surprised by the sheer size of Golden Gate Park, which is 20% larger than New York City's Central Park, consisting of over 1,017 acres of land. Shaped as a rectangle and spreading from a central location all the way to the Pacific Ocean, we can say that the park has multiple roles in our daily city life: recreational, cultural and environmental. On foot, visitors are not allowed in the park between midnight and 5am. For safety reasons. Half the day on Saturdays and all Sundays, JFK Drive, the main park’s artery is closed to cars from Stanyan to Park Presidio – a delight for bikers and skaters.

Alamo Square- located in central San Francisco, before reaching Golden Gate Park, this park on the hill offers a view of the famous ‘Painted Ladies’, a row of beautifully preserved Victorian houses and of downtown skyline.

Lands End- one of the most beautiful scenic trails in San Francisco where you almost forget that you are in the middle of the city. The most-traveled trail in Lands End is the Coastal Trail, a section of the California Coastal Trail that follows the railbed of the old Cliff House Railway.Start with a visit at the beautiful, classical architecture Legion of Honor Museum and end at Sutro Bath, the ruins of what once were the most famous San Francisco public spa.

Culture

San Francisco is a world class cultural city with symphony, opera, a jazz center, museums and famous street and public spaces art. For free cultural entertainment, look around downtown and you will notice sculptural installation in front of most big name companies’ buildings or lobbies or visit the Transbay Terminal park, located next to the Salesforce Tower building, now the tallest in the city. Two relevant modern museums are also conveniently located downtown: SFMOMA and Contemporary Jewish Museum. Along the waterfront and close to San Francisco Port and Ferry Building, you can enjoy the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum for the young, the curious and young at heart.

San Francisco City Hall is a building worth visiting, as it is the nearby Asian Museum of Art.

If you decide to venture beyond downtown and you have at least half a day available, make it a nature and culture day, Golden Gate Park offers a plethora of museums and gardens and you can enjoy things as different as modern art and spotting buffalos: DeYoung Museum, California Academy of Science, Japanese Tea Garden, The Strybing Arboretum, Stow Lake, The Buffalo Paddock, The Park Windmills, Japanese Tea Garden, The Conservatory of Flowers.

Legion of Honor- located in a natural breathtaking setting, at the beginning of the Lands End trail, the museum offers classical art collections and exhibits, with organ classical music concerts in the weekends

Catch one of our world famous symphony or opera productions or a jazz concert at SF Jazz.

For a flair of street art, visit the Clarion Alley in Mission District for its colorful murals, which are most of the time a lot more than art, but true socio-political statements.

Spend a half a day visiting Mission Dolores, have a picnic in Dolores Park and grab a delicious pastry at Tartine Bakery. Mission San Francisco de Asís is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions.

Neighborhoods

I always say that visiting San Francisco’s neighborhoods is like a trip around the world.

We have Chinatown. Japantown, Mission District – the historic Latin neighborhood, Richmond District, with a lot of Russian and Jewish food and influences, North Beach- the Italian neighborhood, but most of the time, our cultures blend, neighborhoods are just villages where everyone knows everyone and people of sort of backgrounds, ethnicity and nationality come together to share the streets, parks, restaurants and most importantly, each other company.

Aside the above mentioned historical neighborhoods, here are few recommended destinations that embody modern San Francisco, with its vibrant, innovative flair and penchant for reinvention:

Hayes Valley- a very centrally located destination, the epitome of hip, but laid-back shopping, with nice restaurants, unique brand designers boutiques and its proximity to City Hall, SF Jazz, Symphony and Opera.

Noe Valley- stroll along 24^th St, shop and dine, explore adjacent streets to admire beautifully restored Victorian and Edwardian houses. The street takes you all the way to Mission District and makes for a gradual change of scenery.

Valencia Street and Mission Street- Mission District – one of the most vibrant in San Francisco, a mixture of Latino culture and pop and foodie culture, offering everything from traditional and innovative restaurants to shopping, live music clubs, bars, street art and festivals.

Castro District- known as one the largest and first gay neighborhoods in the US, Castro is anchored by the beautiful art deco Castro Theatre and its known for its lively atmosphere with numerous bars, clubs and restaurants. The neighborhood has a special atmosphere during the Gay Month Pride in June, when people from all around the world come to San Francisco to celebrate and acknowledge the LGBTQ rights.

Marina District- Stroll along Chestnut Street and Union Street, two of San Francisco’s nicest shopping and dining destinations, walk to Marina Green for an up- close look at the Alcatraz and Golden Gate Bridge.

Pacific Heights- anchored by the main commercial drag, Fillmore Street, this is the most expensive neighborhood in San Francisco. Enjoy the beautiful homes and posh boutiques, while stopping for a coffee or a nice meal at one of the many restaurants.

Haight Ashbury- famous for the “Summer of Love”, it still retains its hippie charm.

Food

San Francisco is a foodie city, where you can find food for all tastes and wallets, from numerous ethnic food choices, food trucks to fusion cuisine and a significant number of Michelin starred restaurants. The San Francisco Bay Area now boasts eight three-Michelin-starred restaurants, the most in the United States. Whether you are looking for the high-end culinary experience or a less expensive meal, the city promises you a variety of treats in all price ranges.

If you have more time, you can always take day or overnight trips outside of San Francisco. From Napa and Sonoma Valleys to the north to Monterey, Carmel or Santa Cruz to the south to a trip to Silicon Valley and Stanford University or one to Berkeley, where you can emerge into the UC Berkeley campus culture. Further away you can visit Lake Tahoe or breathtaking Yosemite National Park.

The rest is in the travel books....

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