San Francisco Guide

Golden Gate Park

The expansive, man-made rectangle of greenery in the westernsector is home to a brace of finemuseums and several quiet gardens, each with its own theme.

SoMa

Once the area’s central industrial zone, the region south of Market Street was also briefly the hub of the Internet boom of the 1990s;these days it’s home to some fantastic institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the much-loved SBC Park, where the baseball Giants play.

When to visit

San Francisco’s climate is among the most stable in the world, with a daytime temperature that rarely ventures more than 5ºF either side of 60ºF (15ºC) but can drop much lower at night. Summer does offer some sunny days of course, but it also sees heavy fog roll in through the Golden Gate to smother the city.Winters bring most of the city’s rain-fall, sometimes in quite torrential storms. The nicest times to visit are late May and June, when the hills are greenest and covered with wildflowers, or October and November, when you can be fairly sure of good weather and reduced crowds at the major attractions.

San Francisco

One of America’s most beautiful cities, San Francisco sits on a fog-capped, hilly peninsula bounded by the shimmering waters of San Francisco Bay to the east and the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean to the west.Whether you’re drawn in by the natural setting, or the free-spirited, nonconformist ways for which the city is also famous, you’ll find plenty to keep you occupied once there.The steep streets are lined with picturesque rows of Victorian houses, and the neighborhoods running alongside dotted withsophisticated restaurants, and chic clubs occupying converted warehouses. What’s more, there’s an almost small town feel to it all – provided you don’tmind the hills, nearly every major sight is just a walkor short bike ride away, and if you do, a great old cable car system provides an equally fun way of getting around.Named for St Francis of Assisi, the city was transformed almost overnight in the 1840s from a sleepyfishing village to a Gold Rush boomtown.The hilly terrain didn’ t daunt the prospectors who threw up a city here, and the cata- clysmic earthquakes and fires (most notably in 1906 and 1989) only seemed to make people more determined to stay. East of the city, Berkeley is dominated by its university,which has given rise to a thriving bookstore and café scene, and sits just north of the gritty port city of Oakland.