"zChris' San Francisco" a San Francisco Travel Page by zChris

<center><font size=5>T H R O U G H<FONT COLOR=WHITE>---</FONT>T H E<FONT COLOR=WHITE>---</FONT>F O G</FONT></center>

San Francisco the imperial city. San Francisco the hollow city. San Francisco the mysterious city. These are just a few of the concepts attributed to one of America's most fascinating metropolises by authors who have recently written of it. Few can disagree that it is a beautiful city, and on the same token, one constantly wrought with problems...social, physical, and environmental. Condo towers and Victorian mansions look down on housing projects and a large homeless population. Internet firms stare across South of Market streets towards old delis, and yuppie lofts stand next to decaying residential hotels. The city is in a constant flux.

The average tourist to San Francisco sees very little of the actual city. Even one who visits all the neighbourhoods listed in Fodor's, an impressive lot of which are fairly untouristed, will not see the full palette of the city. Of course, the visitor to San Francisco will never have enough time to experience this palette. However, he or she can attempt to avoid the tourist haunts and "standard" attractions and at least extract a bit of reality from their visit. And at the very least, the visitor can avoid the atrocious farce that the once proud working-class docks of Fisherman's Wharf has become.

I beseech the would-be visitor: see the multicultural Mission District, not the clean but snobbish Marina District. Ride the not-so-historic but more essential MUNI Metro light rail rather than the cable cars. Of course, see places like North Beach and Chinatown that have been jaded but are nevertheless must-sees for their historic and architectural value, if not still their aura and character, and see the bridges in all their majesty. But don't neglect Haight-Ashbury, which is famous but surprisingly undervisited by the average visitor, nor the Sunset, which rolls its stucco homes calmly toward the Pacific. Take your camera where no one has before.

Walk on the wild side in San Francisco but be tolerant of others. A creation of the Gold Rush which brought the city untold riches but also the moral depravity of the Barbary Coast, San Francisco has long been associated with counterculture. The Beat Generation, the Hippies of the 1960s, and the punks of the 70s all made their headquarters here. Only recently, with the onslaught of th internet economy, stratospheric real estate prices, and Starbucks coffee shops, has the counteridentity of the city mutated...for better or worse, according to some. Nevertheless the city is still notorious for its less than conventional ethos...a cradle of artists and revolutionaries.

Granted the gold that built it and the environment that made it beautiful, but also the horrible destruction of earthquakes hence, San Francisco has always been subject to the whims of nature. And as nature has shaped the city, so have outsiders- those who flocked to the city first for gold, then for jobs, then to escape the cultural prisons of their former lives. The combination of the forces of nature, geography, economy, and artistry have shaped one of the world's greatest cities on the American Pacific coast, thrust headfirst into the Golden Gate, named, in Greek, Chrystopylae, for its resemblance to the Golden Horn that made Constantinople a world capital. And San Francisco, behemoth of technology and empire, is fulfilling its intended role nicely.

<center><B>An overview of San Francisco neighbourhoods</b>

<img src="http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/sf/maps/sf-overview.gif">

(Image source: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com">sfgate.com</a>)</center>