San Francisco - the Jewel of the West Coast

By Pramod De Silva

There are only a very few bridges around the world that everyone knows about. Yes, they can be counted with your fingers. Out of these iconic bridges, there is hardly anyone on the planet who has not heard about San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge.

On a recent visit to the US, I had the opportunity of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge up close. However, it is by no means the only attraction that San Francisco has to offer. Just one hour away by air from its giant neighbour Los Angeles, San Francisco is a unique city that has to be seen to be believed with a profusion of features and landmarks that can be found only in a very few other places.

The Golden Gate is an ideal starting point for any visit to San Francisco. Although placed ninth on the list of the world’s longest suspension bridges, it is perhaps the most well-known. After all, many people would struggle to name even the longest (the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge in Japan).

The famous suspension bridge, with its unique copper colour (formally International Orange), spans the Golden Gate strait, the mile-wide, three-mile-long channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

Rejecting the usual carbon black and steel gray, architect Irving Morrow selected the distinctive orange colour because it blends well with the span’s natural setting as it is a warm colour consistent with the warm colours of the land masses in the setting as distinct from the cool colours of the sky and the sea.

Strait

Why the name Golden Gate? It is generally accepted that the strait was named “Chrysopylae”, or Golden Gate, by John C. Fremont, Captain, topographical Engineers of the U.S. Army circa 1846. It apparently reminded him of a harbour in Istanbul named Chrysoceras or Golden Horn.

Swaying majestically 67 metres above the waters of the Bay, the bridge is 2,727 metres (nearly 3 Km) long. It is 227 metres high. Construction commenced on January 5, 1933 and the Bridge was open to traffic on May 28, 1937. Eleven workers sacrificed their lives while building the bridge.

It is hardly surprising that upon completion of building the Golden Gate Bridge in May 1937, Chief Engineer Joseph B. Strauss was inspired to write a poem entitled “The Mighty task is Done”. The cost of the project was around US$ 35 million then, but experts say it would cost US$ 1.5 billion in today’s money to build it now.

If you gaze at the Golden Gate from afar, you can see a fortified island a little distance away from the bridge. It too is famous for quite different reasons. Just like Golden Gate, the name Alcatraz is instantly recognisable but it has the additional effect of sending a chill down your spine, for only a very few have ever escaped from those walls.

The notorious prison, depicted in movies ranging from Escape from Alcatraz to The Rock (a term generally used to describe Alcatraz), is closed now but you can visit the island by boat. The island is now administered by the US national Park Service and a visit there is termed an “inescapable” experience.

However, if you think of it only as a former prison, you are doing a great disservice to its varied history. It has been a Civil War fortress, bird sanctuary, first lighthouse on the US West Coast, and the birthplace of the American Indian Red Power movement. Moreover, the abundant plant life found on Alcatraz today is not quite “natural” - originally the island was a barren, windswept, bird guano covered piece of sandstone rock. Soil and plants were introduced by the U.S. Army as they built the first U.S. fort on the West Coast, beginning in the 1850s.

Attractions

After visiting these two attractions, you should head out to the city, where the streets literally reach up to the sky, almost vertically. Even if you have not been to San Francisco, you must have seen photographs of tram cars loaded with people hurtling down these roads.

You must walk all the way up to the top of one of these streets - it is an exhilarating experience, with the city laid out below. Then catch a street-car on the way down, on streets where they are available.

The ultra-steep roads and their antique-style or vintage street-cars are hallmarks of San Francisco, a combination not found anywhere else. Most of the streetcars have been sourced from cities abroad which have discontinued their street-car services, making it a mixed bag of styles.

You can a take street-car to another famous attraction of San Francisco - The Fisherman’s Wharf. The famous waterfront location is a must-see in San Francisco, with its historic ships, fishing boats, sea lions basking in the sun, seafood stalls, seafood restaurants, French bread bakeries and souvenir shops. You can spend hours here, walking from end to end, like I did.

Also make sure to visit the Embarcadero (literally Landing Place in Spanish) area, one of the most vibrant in San Francisco, dominated by the Ferry Building and a farmers market. Most visitors also step into the Exploratorium at The Embarcadero, a unique interactive museum dedicated to the excitement of experimentation with more than 600 hands-on exhibits.

This area is ideally explored on foot and you can always a catch a boat to one of the lesser known outer islands such as Treasure Island and Angel Island if you want to just sit back and relax.

Marine

San Francisco has many other attractions worthy of your time. The number one on my list is the California Academy of Sciences, the World’s only aquarium-planetarium-rainforest-living museum where you can come face to face with penguins and piranhas, climb into the canopy of a four-story rainforest and stop and smell the wild flowers on a 2.5-acre living roof.

If you want more marine life, head over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium or the Aquarium of the Bay before taking a one-hour blue and gold fleet San Francisco bay cruise to cap it off. It is a city that takes a bit getting used to, with so many things to do and see, but the views and experiences are simply exceptional.