So it seems I’m off to SF in a couple of weeks for a week-long tech conference which I’m not desperately interested in, but hey ho, gift horses in the mouth and all that. What would anyone recommend? Likes: food, drink, sport, people, tunes, books, getting to feel the soul of a place. Many thanks in advance.
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Railroad Bill says
I love the whole city but an afternoon in Amoeba is one well spent…
http://www.amoeba.com/our-stores/
Chris says
Amoeba is on my bucket list.
VincePacket says
Pre-book an Alcatraz trip. It’s very cool, but you won’t get tickets on the day.
Take a ferry to Sausalito to get away from the busy city. It’s got some fabulous restaurants and nature walks.
You will be tempted to take a cable car from market street to the piers. It’s a great tourist thing to do but if you are fit enough, walk it. Go up and down through Chinatown for some excellent atmosphere and good food.
You should take a wander around Haight Ashbury just to say you have, but I find it’s a bit of a tourist trap fake version of what it was probably like in the 60s/70s. It is still very colourful though.
The Museum of Modern Art near the Moscone convention centre is an excellent diversion if you have a few hours to slip away.
I could keep going for ages. It’s a great walking city with one caveat. Don’t dress like a tourist, the homeless folks there are pretty relentless, especially around market street and the surrounding area. Look like a business person with a bit of purpose about you and they generally ignore you.
Have fun.
Dodger Lane says
Lucky you; Alcatraz is interesting and don’t forget to ride on the trams – may be touristy but great fun. If you’re into bookstores, City Lights pr whatever it’s called now. It’s a lovely city to walk around.
ianess says
Not a huge fan, TBH. Cold weather, sullen hospitality workers, overly touristy, Chinatown a flyblown dump that could do with a good clean, huge numbers of junkies, homeless and mentally ill heavily concentrated in certain areas, too many smug, rich IT geeks, rip-off prices.
A restaurant that is worth visiting is a Vietnamese near a quay. IIRC, it’s the ‘Sliding Door’ or something like that. Hugely popular, so need to book well in advance . Also, massively expensive, but food pretty good and very buzzy atmosphere.
Ameoba in LA is the best record store in the world, so the SF version should also be really great.
ivylander says
I prefer the Berkeley location of Amoeba, but then I’m not a huge fan of the Haight.
Agree with VincePacket that Alcatraz is well worth a visit. Also recommend a walk around the Embarcadero (excellent food in the Ferry terminal). If the Giants baseball team is in town, their stadium, AT&T Park, is a lovely place to watch a game. (On the other hand, the Oakland Athletics’ stadium is a hovel.) And the day trip out to Napa Valley, if you can swing it, is a very good thing.
Blue Boy says
Had a family holiday there a while back and absolutely loved it. We stayed in a residential area on Portrero Hill and it was nice to be out of the city centre and just wander around. Highlights for us were
renting bikes and cycling along the bay, from the Wharf area, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and along the other side to Sausaliot, then getting a ferry back;
The de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park (the Science Musuem is amazing as well apparently but we made the mistake on going in one of their monthly free admission days and encountered a queue that would have meant us standing in line all day)
Breakfast sitting in the sun looking out on the Bay from the Ferry Building Marketplace near Oakland Bridge
Going to a baseball game at Oakland. The Giants weren’t playing at home so we went to see the A’s. it is a bit of a dump as mentioned above, but had a charm – kind of like watching Tranmere Rovers only sunnier.
City Lights bookshop. Got to be done.
Enjoy it. A city I can well imagine living in.
johnw says
I didn’t think a game at the A’s was low rent. It’s a bit functional but then so are most of the baseball parks I’ve visited. It may have been that they were playing the top of the league the day we visited and there was a rather spectacular firework display afterwards but there was a very good atmosphere there and being a park with a car park, there were barbies etc in the car park before the game. You can’t beat a night game for atmosphere and those (artificial) colours.
ruff-diamond says
Compared to AT&T Park the Coliseum is a bit of a dump. It doesn’t help that it’s also home to the Raiders so doubles as a football stadium. Plus right now the A’s are a dogshit team thanks to their cheapskate owner, so there’s not much pleasure to be had from watching them right now. But as you say, much of the enjoyment comes from the experience of being at a major league game – I have very fond memories of going to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field about 15 years ago…
Sitheref2409 says
Sonoma is worth a trip – or any of the wineries, to be honest.
Alcatraz as mentioned.
See if the Giants are playing, or the 49ers have any spare tix.
I’ve been to NorCal for rugby, and the SF trip was one of my favorites. That may be because the Sonoma day was just gorgeous
Uncle Wheaty says
I was there in 1993 and as recommended above I would also suggest:
A tram ride
Alcatraz
Sonoma Valley wine trip
Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge as “More Than A Feeling” by Boston comes on the radio and air guitaring in the passenger seat with your feet on the dashboard all the way over (I wasn’t driving and I can not guarantee the local radio playlists…this is my perfect music related holiday moment and unlikely to be surpassed)
Bargepole says
Lombard Street just to see it.
Haight to say you’ve been.
Castro district is colourful.
Fishermans Wharf for touristy stuff.
Alcatraz as mentioned.
ruff-diamond says
If you’re in a museumy/arty mood I would recommend the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park – they currently have a Turner exhibition running until Sept 20th. Also in GGP is the California Academy of Sciences. You might also enjoy the Exploratorium on the Embarcadero, which has a ton of hands-on exhibits.
Just across the bay there’s also the Chabot Space and Science Center.
Everybody has recommended a trip to Alcatraz and I’ll add my voice to that – I’d also say it’s well worth springing the extra few dollars to get the audio tour.
johnw says
Can you do it without the audio tour? That would be a wasted opportunity, the audio, when we went about 15 years ago was done by an ex inmate.
gunsofbrixton says
Golden gate park so great. I’d also recommend going up twin peaks for the photo opportunities.
Alactraz is great too. If the weather is right, murky and grey!
bobness says
Another vote for Alcatraz. Try and get one of the Ranger talks/guides if you can, very interesting.
We went out to Napa Valley, Los Olivos is well worth a visit. Goosecross winery was a fave of ours.
I’d say Muir Woods is well worth a trip too, if you have a car. Primeval forest, you half expect a Stegosaurus to poke its head around a tree.
Amoeba as well.
Best pub we went to was Magnolia in H-A.Great beer, great food.
mikethep says
Another vote for Amoeba, you could spend all day there. Also a way of ticking off Haight-Ashbury without making a special trip. And another vote for City Lights, and the t-shirts are good!
Maybe walk downhill and get the cable car back up, it’s a hell of a slog. The cable car museum on Mason St is worth dropping into – fascinating to see the machinery working.
fentonsteve says
I went there on honeymoon in 1999. and loved it. Like Cambridge-on-Sea.
Pre-book Alcatraz. Fascinating place – plan to spend a good chunk of the day there.
Golden Gate park.
The Presido (and Fort Point) and Golden Gate bridge if the weather is sunny – it might be the only day of your stay when it’s not shrouded in mist. It’s quite a distance – we stayed in Union Square and it took two bus rides to get there.
Museum of Modern Art is great.
As Mike says, walk to Fisherman’s Wharf (and nip into the cable car museum) and take the tram back up.
Amoeba. I came back with an extra suitcase.
We took the train to Oakland and Berkley. “Underwhelming” is the word that springs to mind.
Phil Pirrip says
We visited in 2008 and loved the place; my brother and sister-in-law and kids have just returned and didn’t like it. Admittedly we were staying just off Union Square and their hotel was in a run-down part of town near Tenderloin and Market Street. As a result they were advised to get cabs to avoid the local population of druggies and dropouts in the vicinity. We walked a lot and also benefitted from a three day BART travel pass that covered the historic trams as well as buses and trains.
Things to see: Alcatraz is a must as mentioned elsewhere; get a bus out to the Golden Gate and walk across; the Coit Tower offers a good view of the bay and the walk up there is great. If you recall a Sony TV ad from a few years back soundtracked by Jose Gonzalez and featuring loads of multi coloured bouncing balls that gives a feel for the neighbourhood and the style of houses. We also did a couple of walking tours organised by the Friends of San Francisco Libraries.
http://www.sfcityguides.org/
One was around Chinatown and the other (Cityscapes and Public Places) took us to rooftop gardens and buildings in the financial district that we would never have considered even being open to the public. The guides are all volunteers and the tours operate by donation on a turn-up and go basis and lasting 90 minutes or so. Well worth it and there is a good choice of tours.
Highlights: Too many to mention but hanging off the side of a tram and seeing a stonking great articulated fire engine go past sounding its horn are up there.
Enjoy your trip