North Beach in San Francisco

5 December 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit, San Francisco Bay Area, Shopping Reading Time:  7 minutes

© panoramio.com - Almondox/cc-by-3.0

© panoramio.com – Almondox/cc-by-3.0

North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, the Financial District, and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco’s “Little Italy” and has historically been home to a large Italian American population, largely from Northern Italy. It still has many Italian restaurants, though many other ethnic groups currently live in the neighborhood. It was also the historic center of the beatnik subculture and has become one of San Francisco’s main nightlife districts as well as a residential neighborhood populated by a mix of young urban professionals, families, and Chinese immigrants. The American Planning Association (APA) has named North Beach as one of ten “Great Neighborhoods in America”.   read more…

South of Market in San Francisco

13 April 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  9 minutes

© flickr.com - Pascal Vuylsteker/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – Pascal Vuylsteker/cc-by-sa-2.0

South of Market (SoMa) is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, situated just south of Market Street. It contains several sub-neighborhoods including South Beach, Yerba Buena, and Rincon Hill. SoMa is home to many of the city’s museums, to the headquarters of several major software and Internet companies, and to the Moscone Conference Center.   read more…

Telegraph Hill in San Francisco

19 February 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  6 minutes

Filbert Street and Grant Avenue, looking towards Coit Tower © Goodshoped35110s

Filbert Street and Grant Avenue, looking towards Coit Tower © Goodshoped35110s

Telegraph Hill (elev. 285 ft (87 m)) is a hill and surrounding neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco’s 44 hills, and one of its original “Seven Hills”. The San Francisco Chronicle defines the Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill areas as bounded by Sacramento Street, Taylor Street, Bay Street, and the water. The neighborhood is bounded by Vallejo Street to the south, Sansome Street to the east, Francisco Street to the north and Powell Street and Columbus Avenue to the west, where the northwestern corner of Telegraph Hill overlaps with the North Beach neighborhood.   read more…

Golden Gate Park in San Francisco

13 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  7 minutes

Golden Gate Park © Taras Bobrovytsky

Golden Gate Park © Taras Bobrovytsky

Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of 1,017 acres (412 ha) of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development of Golden Gate Park. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape to but 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York City, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles (4.8 km) long east to west, and about half a mile (0.8 km) north to south. With 24 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the third most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park and the Lincoln Memorial.   read more…

The Castro in San Francisco

12 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  15 minutes

LGBTQ Pride Flag Market Street and the Castro © flickr.com - tedeytan/cc-by-sa-2.0

LGBTQ Pride Flag Market Street and the Castro © flickr.com – tedeytan/cc-by-sa-2.0

The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s, the Castro remains one of the most prominent symbols of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activism and events in the world. Castro Street was named after José Castro (1808–1860), a Californian leader of Mexican opposition to U.S. rule in California in the 19th century, and alcalde of Alta California from 1835 to 1836. The neighborhood known as the Castro, in the district of Eureka Valley, was created in 1887 when the Market Street Railway Company built a line linking Eureka Valley to downtown.   read more…

Painted Ladies in San Francisco

1 June 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  6 minutes

© panoramio.com - MARELBU/cc-by-3.0

© panoramio.com – MARELBU/cc-by-3.0

In American architecture, painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings repainted, starting in the 1960s, in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians. Although polychrome decoration was common in the Victorian era, the colors used on these houses are not based on historical precedent.   read more…

Nob Hill in San Francisco

12 November 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  10 minutes

Cable car on Powell Street © flickr.com - Dennis Jarvis/cc-by-sa-2.0

Cable car on Powell Street © flickr.com – Dennis Jarvis/cc-by-sa-2.0

Nob Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California that is known for its numerous luxury hotels and historic mansions. Nob Hill has historically served as a center of San Francisco’s upper class. Nob Hill is among the highest-income neighborhoods in the United States, as well as one of the most desirable and expensive real estate markets in the country. Nob Hill is a luxury destination in San Francisco, owing to its numerous Michelin-starred restaurants, boutiques, cultural institutions, art galleries, and historic landmarks. The neighborhood is named after one of San Francisco’s original “Seven Hills”.   read more…

Lombard Street in San Francisco

17 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Gaurav1146

© Gaurav1146

Lombard Street is an east–west street in San Francisco, California that is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns. Stretching from The Presidio east to The Embarcadero (with a gap on Telegraph Hill), most of the street’s western segment is a major thoroughfare designated as part of U.S. Route 101. The famous one-block section, claimed to be “the crookedest street in the world”, is located along the eastern segment in the Russian Hill neighborhood. It is a major tourist attraction, receiving around two million visitors per year and up to 17,000 per day on busy summer weekends, as of 2015. San Francisco surveyor Jasper O’Farrell named the road after Lombard Street in Philadelphia.   read more…

Museum of Ice Cream

11 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area, Bon appétit, Miami / South Florida, Museums, Exhibitions, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  5 minutes

Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco © Cjfrey/cc-by-sa-4.0

Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco © Cjfrey/cc-by-sa-4.0

Museum of Ice Cream, started in Manhattan, New York City, is an interactive art exhibit with ice cream and candy themed exhibits, all brightly colored, in a maze of rooms containing “among other things, a rock-candy cave, a unicorn, and a swimming pool of rainbow sprinkles”. The exhibits are very often the backdrop for selfies, and the many selfies posted to Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, and other social media sites have served to promote the exhibit. Each visitor is offered numerous tastings throughout. Tickets must be purchased in advance for specific time slots online only. The term “museum” was chosen for the temporary art exhibition because it was something people would understand.   read more…

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