San Francisco Field Trip

From Golden Gate Bridge to Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, the colorful Haight-Ashbury section and beyond, San Francisco attractions beckon for far closer scrutiny. Rising from sea level to more than 900 feet in elevation, the city often can be shrouded in fog that lends an ethereal quality to all there is to see and do. This charismatic port city has trafficked with peoples of the world for more than a century and its large number of residents with ties to other cultures has flavored cuisine, commerce and lifestyles, making the city a magnet for diverse unconventionality that lends color to an already thrilling locale.

Alamo Square
The line-up of Victorian houses called “Postcard Row,” is one of the most photographed residential streets in America. Bounded by Webster, Broderick, Oak and Golden Gate streets, Alamo Square Park overlooks the downtown area to the east, framing these turn-of-the-century homes against a backdrop of modern skyscrapers.

Alcatraz
Once the chilling destination of maximum-security convicts, Alcatraz now hosts more tourists per year than the prison population of its entire 29-year stretch as a federal penitentiary. Audio-assisted tours in several languages recount history of the island and inmate inhabitants including Machine Gun Kelley, Al Capone and Robert Stroud, the “Birdman of Alcatraz.” On a clear day, views of San Francisco’s skyline and bridges are alone worth the ferryboat crossing.

Cable Car Museum
See models, photographs and relics of San Francisco’s early transit system, including the first cable car built in 1873. A video describes operation and an underground viewing room showcases how sheaves guide the cars under the street.

Cable Car Rides
The nation’s only moving national historic landmarks, San Francisco’s cable cars still run on 8.8 miles of track along three of their original 100-year-old routes. These motorless carriages travel by gripping onto underground cables on the ascent and releasing on the descent. Average speed is 9.5 mph, and the steepest grade is 21.3 percent.

Chinatown
Home to the largest concentration of Chinese outside China, San Francisco’s Chinatown packages exotic shops, restaurants, produce markets, temples and more within nearly two dozen downtown blocks. Bounded by Broadway, Bush, Kearny and Stockton streets, this is truly a city within a city.

Fisherman’s Wharf
Although considered the city’s most popular tourist destination, picturesque Fisherman’s Wharf with its pungent aromas remains a working fishing pier, annually bringing in thousands of tons of fresh fish and crabs. Here you will find dozens of restaurants, markets, import houses and souvenir shops. Among favorite buys are fresh seafood and sourdough bread. You can park in lots along Beach, North Point, Bay and Francisco streets.

Ghirardelli Square
Shopping and dining opportunities abound at this 2.5-acre site where the historic San Francisco Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory was saved from destruction to become one of the nation’s first showcase examples of adaptive reuse. Within walking distance of Fisherman’s Wharf, the square is bounded by Beach, Polk, North Point and Larkin streets.

Golden Gate Bridge
Actually painted an “International Orange,” the world’s most famous bridge spans the Golden Gate strait, a mile-wide gulf between the bay and ocean, separating Marin County from the city. Early Spanish explorers sailed the fog-shrouded coastline for years before finally discovering this vital gateway that, in 1769, led them from rough Pacific waters to the shelter of San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate’s pair of bridge towers are the world’s highest, at 746 feet above the water, and a clearance of 220 feet allows passage of the largest oceangoing vessels. Drive, bike or walk across the two-mile long suspension bridge.

Golden Gate Park
The 1,000-acre Golden Gate Park features Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Asian Art Museum, tennis courts, croquet, baseball diamonds, horse stables and more.

Haight-Ashbury
This center of ‘60s psychedelic activity to this day retains counterculture credentials with a proliferation of piercing salons, bookstores brimming with hippie nostalgia, and off-beat shops set amid Victorian architecture.

Mission Dolores
As the oldest structure in San Francisco, Mission Dolores was built by the Franciscan friars and Ohlone Indians in 1791, when the land was still claimed by Spanish pioneers and called Alta California. Inside the church is a small museum, and behind is the Mission cemetery with historical gravestones.

Palace of Fine Arts
Originally designed by architect Bernard Maybeck as a temporary structure for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition, the Palace of Fine Arts was conceived as a grand classical ruin. While surrounding structures eventually were razed, public pressure led to preserving the Palace and in 1996, the crumbling structure was rebuilt in near entirety. Its Exhibition Hall houses the hands-on science Exploratorium, conceived by physicist Frank Oppenheimer. An adjacent 1,000-seat theater hosts events and concerts.

Powell Street Hill
The foot of Powell Street serves as San Francisco’s downtown transportation hub, site of the cable car turnaround and underground Muni and BART stations, plus the F-Line Historic Streetcar route along Market Street. Trek four blocks up the hill, and you’ll encounter Union Square, the heart of the city’s shopping district.

Pyramid
The Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco’s tallest building stretching 835 feet into the sky, marks the edge of the financial district and the beginning of North Beach, the Italian quarter brimming with aromatic cafes.

San Francisco Ferry Building
Reopened in April, 2003, after a $100-million renovation, the landmark San Francisco Ferry Building hosts the long-running Saturday Farmer’s Market, also open on Sunday and some week days. You will find fresh breads, gourmet olive oils and organic vegetables and fruits filling the stands, along with more than 40 Bay Area artisan food shops.

San Francisco Zoo
At this zoo on Sloat Boulevard with an entrance on 45th Avenue, more than 1,000 mammals and birds await within the Primate Discovery Center, Koala Crossing, a warthog exhibit and more.