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Travel Blog
San Francisco Bay: Watching the tide role away
May 18 2007
I am not a city person, but if I had the choice of living in and around any city in the world then without doubt I would choose San Francisco and surrounding beautiful Bay Area. Why am I so sure? Being a person from a small town, I like the friendliness, charm and openness that goes with small town life. San Francisco has fairly large population of 800,000 people. The 9 counties of the wider Bay Area bring the population up to 6.7 million. “Hardly small!” I hear you say. However, on two separate visits to different parts of the Bay Area I have found it to possess the graces of a small town. Even the tramps are friendly and polite! San Francisco has all the usual shops, fine cafes and restaurants if that’s what your into, but just wandering about the place is pleasant and way less stressful than in other great cities of the world.
No offence to Los Angelinos and the glamour that goes with Southern California, but I simply find the Bay Area a more liveable place. Getting around the main city of San Francisco is comparatively straight-forward to get around. It has the BART underground system for longer journeys. However, due to the compact size of the main city you can walk it, despite the steep hills. Indeed, it is the hills of San Francisco put the city in my top five scenic cities of the world, a list also containing Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Cape Town. These are my favourites for their physical geographic wonder. Feel free to browse my portfolio to see if you agree (Hong Kong is the remaining one I have yet to visit!)
San Francisco has three fantastic vantage points in which to gaze at the city in awe. You can venture up Twin Peaks, quite a yomp on foot. The Golden Gate Bridge is a bit distant but from here you get a superb view of the city centre skyscrapers and the wooden houses that span the entire peninsula. Another great vista often missed, but I feel a must, is from the Coit Tower (see photo above). Located in the northeast corner of the city, it affords a spectacular view in all directions, especially across to the Golden Gate and Alcatraz Island. Finally, a journey across the Golden Gate to Marin County gets you into hillsides that give you that classic view back to the city with the gargantuan towers of the Golden Gate before you. If you continue into Marin County, then venture up to the top of Mount Tamalpais through glorious woodland. For me this was enough to conclude the Bay Area has it all, a friendly city life but with amazing countryside adjacent to it. You can be whoever you want to be. Nobody judges you, cares how you look or how you sound.