San Francisco is a city with an abundance of historic charms. The Golden Gate Bridge, steep streets lined with colourful Victorian-era homes and the city’s iconic cable cars are a powerful reminder that you’re in one of the most culturally important cities in the USA.
Foodie focus
In addition to this city’s rich heritage, the Northern Californian metropolis continues to innovate and inspire, with a pioneering farm-to-table restaurant scene, legendary covered food market and all-compassing eco vibe.
Pier 39 the classic, bustling bayside pier, and a must-visit on any itinerary – although save your hunger for Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. Following the devastating earthquake in 1989, the city’s grandiose but declining transit hub was repurposed as California’s culinary epicentre, which reopened in 2003 with an unwavering focus on local, sustainable and independent stalls and restaurants.
Often copied (an Oakland replica is currently on the cards), the Ferry Building has never been bettered, and the thrice-weekly farmers’ market (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays until 2pm) keeps it real and hip food trucks and cult bakeries. Market highlights include Pepples organic vegan donuts, Hog Island’s oyster chowder and the freshly-baked scuffins (the lovechild of a scone and muffin) from Frog Hollow Farm.
For a substantial feed, queen for the walk-ins-only bar and order spring rolls and shaking beef at The Slanted Door, the city’s deservedly hyped Vietnamese eatery. San Francisco has also been a cultural hotbed for decades, home to Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in the Fifties, birthplace of the Hippie movement of the late Sixties and Seventies, and an incubator of countless varied jazz, rock and experimental music scenes, in the bars of Haight-Ashbury and beyond.
Today, independent galleries as well as world-class art museums make San Francisco a feast of inspiration for creative spirits. Many of the most established galleries are clustered around Union Square downtown, while Potrero Hill is San Francisco’s emerging are district. Don’t miss 111 Minna, a gallery by day, dance club by night, with a bar that is practically a work of art in itself: a 25ft long rolled steel and copper creation by local sculptor Jud Bergeron.
With such a vibrant cultural and culinary scene, San Francisco is everything an intrepid traveller could demand from a city break. However, it’s also endowed with ravishingly natural scenery and a geographic position that makes it a perfect base for explorations further afield in the state of California – not to mention a getaway city to airports across the globe.
Escape to nature
Stretching across the western slopes of the Sierre Nevada, 200 miles east of San Francisco, Yosemite is California’s most celebrated national park and a bucket list destination for all nature-loving adventures. This is where you’ll find yourself scaling spectacular granite cliffs, marvelling at waterfalls, rafting clear streams and losing yourself in vast sequoia groves. Then consider retreating to a mountain lodge to treat weary limbs to a hot tub under the stars accompanied by a Sonoma chardonnay.
Speaking of chardonnay, touring the vineyards of boutique Sonoma and big-hitter Napa is a birthright for most Californians; and a thrilling farm-to-table dining scene has sprung up among the vines, making this a dream destination for lovers of food and wine alike.
With so much to see, do and taste too, when you fly into San Francisco, it’s just the start of a Californian adventure.