SF Convention & Visitors Bureau and other San Francisco, CA Transportation Tips

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Visit here before you come:
sfvisitor.org

Tons of free maps, transportation advice on how to get to Muir Woods, how to catch a ferry to Sausalito or Tiburon, and for guides to the week's events. Extremely helpful experts.

When the Powell-Hyde Cable Car comes to the 'end of the line' at Powell & Market, walk down to the Plaza for the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, Visitors Information Center, 900 Market Street, Lower Level, Hallidie Plaza (near the cable car turn-around). Telephone (415)391-2000.

The Plaza takes its name from the Scotsman Andrew Hallidie, who was the orginal designer of the cable car.

Pick up a map of the MUNI bus routes; spend some time with the experts planning out the best way to get to places like Golden Gate Park, Legion of Honor Museum and the Cliff House. To save money, ask about all-day MUNI passes.

At the visitors bureau (see below) you can buy a weekly CityPass for municipal transportaion, tickets for cable cars, the Blue and Gold Fleet bay cruise, admission to the Museum of Modern Art, the Exploratorium, the Legion of Honor and the California Academy of Sciences and Steinhart Aquarium.

From here you can walk to beautiful Union Square only a few blocks away. Forget renting a car. San Francisco is compact enough to get to the good stuff by foot, MUNI bus, cable car or taxi.

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Q. How do those cable cars work anyway?
A. Cars grip a moving underground wire rope (cable).

Q. Best cable car line to take?
A. I have 2 favorite lines: (1) Powell / Hyde Street Line - catch it at Aquatic Park or at Powell/Market Street intersection (2) California Street Line - catch it at the Hyatt Embarcadero or at the Van Ness / California intersection.

http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/mechanical.html

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: UNION SQUARE

Wlaking Tour #1
Start at Geary & Mason Street (highlight: 'the finest Art stores in the City without ever going in a museum')

Walk up Powell to Sutter Street. (highlights: Disney, Borders Books, art galleries)

At Post St, cross the street & walk down Powell, opposite side of the street (highlights: Sir Francis Drake Beefeater valets, window-shopping)

Walk down Post St to Grant Ave (highlights: Saks 5th Ave, Niketown, art galleries)

Go to Grant Ave and enter Chinatown, which starts at Bush St, go as far as Portsmouth Square.

North Beach starts at Columbus St. Turn around & return to Union Square.

FINAL NOTE: Don't miss the best shopping in the world at Union Square: Gucci, Channel, Louis Vuitton, Armani. Print out the map on this web page: http://www.sfgate.com/listings/venuegroup.php?shopping,g44

Walking Tour #2
Start at Powell & Market Street (highlight: Cable Car turn-around, SF Visitor's Bureau for 'maps & things' in Hallidie Plaza and SF Shopping Center Building on Market St)

Walk down Market to 4th St, then down 4th St to Mission St (highlights: enter the Metreon Theater Complex on the corner of 4th & Mission St. Walk out the back door of these building and you're in the beautiful Yerba Buena Gardens, across the street from the Gardens is historic St. Patrick's Church rebuilt after the earthquake & fire 1906, and the SF Museum of Modern Art is on 3rd St).

Walking Tour #3
Start at Powell & Market Street, take a Cable Car ride to Nob Hill. Get off at California St, go inside the Fairmont Hotel and go up the outdoor elevator! Across the street is a beautiful park in front of magnificent Grace Cathedral. Walk down California to Grant Ave and head back to Union Square on Grant Ave (highlight: Chinatown)

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'Mode': TO
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: The 97-foot Dewey Monument in the center of Union Square. The 18-month, $25 million restoration is now complete. Union Square is the 2 1/2-acre heart of San Francisco's shopping and theater district. It draws locals and visitors alike, bounded by Powell, Post, Stockton & Geary streets.

A new hot spot is found along Post Street between Stockton Street and Grant Avenue: high-end jewelers, and British clothiers such as Dunhill, Thomas Pink, Jaeger and Burberry. This one-block stretch of resembles London's famous Bond Street. Noteworthy are Boucheron. Also Shreve & Co., a jewelry store forged 150 years ago by ingots from California's Silver and Gold Rush, located at the corner building that it has occupied since 1906.

Back at the square, there's historic St. Francis Hotel, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus' and Wilkes Bashford

Back down Stockton, Britex Fabrics (since the '50s) and Morrow's Nut House (since the '30s) coexist with Bottega Veneta, Frette and Prada. Next door to the the Nut House is the charming Antoinette's Fine Jewels, purveyors of estate jewelry since the '30s. The perfect gift combo from this street might just be a pound of Morrow's "Jumbo Cashews" ($6) and a pair of mink-lined alligator mules from Frette ($750).

From Geary Street, a left on Grant followed by another quick left leads to Maiden Lane, a historic alley now a pedestrian pathway, it passes some of the city's chicest boutiques: Chanel, YSL, Marc Jacobs, TSE, Wolford and Gumps. The lane is also home to upscale homeware shops like Sur La Table, Pierre Deux and Christofle. But even better, Maiden Lane is one of the best spots to step away from the madding crowd.

SHOPPING WITH KIDS (OF ALL AGES)
Exiting Maiden Lane onto Stockton Street, down at O'Farrell to FAO Schwarz - the classic toy store. Sanrio, the home of Hello Kitty, in the basement of the San Francisco Shopping Centre at Fifth and Market streets. Back up Stockton at Post, can be found both the Levi Store and Niketown.

ALSO
Tiffany, for precious jewelry and Louis Vuitton.

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Lombard Street, the crookiest street in the world, between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets. (Click on aerial photograph to enlarge; it lies between the two red dots.)

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Map of Golden Gate Park (Click on map to enlarge.) I put another map of the Park in the 'Must See Activities' section. More maps are available at .... http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/maps/

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Ship/Boat
Getting TO/AROUND: Blue & Gold Ferry. Alcatraz Island is listed under my 'Must See Activities'. To get there you take a 15 minute ferry boat ride onto the bay, what a thrill. (Click picture to enlarge.) There are also ferries that take you to Marin County (the north side of the GoLden Gate Bridge) to the cities of Sausalito and Tiburn. For the physically fit, Sausalito can also be reached by crossing the Bridge on bike, see my 'Off the Beaten Path' section for more information.

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'Mode': TO
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: ATTENTION WALKERS, BIKE RIDERS & DRIVERS: If you want to know the rough distances between any two points on a map, here’s a website to get maps, directions, and miles. Go to www.expedia.com. Click on “Maps”, then “Get Driving Directions” and “Search for an Address”. Use the street addresses of popular SF locales or restaurants and fill in the online form [1] for Golden Gate Park, use the California Academy of Sciences at 55 Concourse Drive, 94118 [2] for Fisherman’s Wharf/Ghirardelli Square use the Buena Vista Café address at 2765 Hyde Street, 94109 [3] for Embarcadero/Ferry Building/Justin Herman Plaza use 5 The Embarcadero, 94111 [4] the Cliff House located at 1090 Point Lobos, 94121 [5] for Sausalito, use 303 Johnson Street, Sausalito, 94965 [6] for Tiburon, use 5 Main Steet, Tiburon, 94920 [7] for Golden Gate Bridge, you “Search for a Place”, type “Golden Gate Bridge” in the box labeled “Place Name”. For example, using these addresses, if I ride a bike from Fisherman's Wharf to Tiburon, from 2765 Hyde Street to 5 Main Steet, Tiburon, Expedia.com calculates 25 miles. (Pictured here is Sausalito.)

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Train
Getting TO/AROUND: If you have an interest and more time than you know what to do with...The 'F' streetcar lines uses interesting, refurbished contraptions from around the world; from a turn-of-the-century trolley from Kansas City to a vintage streetcar from Italy with loads of old-world charm. It runs from Market and Castro Streets out to the Ferry Building and continues to Fisherman's Wharf. And then retraces its route.

The Ferry Building's tower - a copy of the 12th century Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain - was obviously meant to be framed perfectly by the buildings of what was once the city's main shopping street. But it's turned just slightly, a few degrees off square. The urban legend was always that Willis Polk, who finished the building after A. Page Brown's death, turned the building so he could see the clock tower from his home on Russian Hill. But it was actually Page who turned it, and he did it so it would line up with the shoreline, not with Market Street. Try the food stalls of the reopened Ferry Building.

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Airplane
Getting TO/AROUND: .
SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT
http://www.sfoairport.com/

OAKLAND AIRPORT
http://www.oaklandairport.com/

SAN JOSE AIRPORT
http://www.sjc.org/

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
(For travel security tips, post 9/11)
http://www.tsa.dot.gov/public/

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