An Unborn Legend: A date with beautiful San Francisco

The second leg of my US Trip earlier this year in Feb/March involved a one night and one day stop at San Francisco before flying east to spend for four days in New York City.

As I said in my last post, visiting the United States for the first time, my perspective of SF & NYC was based on their depiction in popular culture. For a cinephile like me, a trip to these cities extended beyond just sight-seeing. It felt like being on a film set, reminiscing on an iconic scene or a song which had been filmed there.

As I landed at SFO and was proceeding to the arrival terminal, the grandeur of this airport struck me. This city was not going to play second fiddle to the larger and more famous Californian city of LA. Everything about San Francisco seemed grander, more organized and efficient than LA. My hotel was in the heart of the city at Powell Street. The best bet to get there from the airport was the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). At $17 for a round trip, comfortable seats and plenty of space to store your luggage, the BART is a big boon to people coming into this city. After a half an hour journey, I reached Powell St from where my hotel was at a walk-able distance. After checking in, I had some time to explore the city in the night as I went to Burger King for a quick bite. Barely 2 hours into the city and the beauty of SF had started to charm me. I was determined to make my only day in SF worth every minute.

The advantage of being in SF is that unlike LA and NYC, it is a much smaller city. Therefore, as a tourist you can cover almost all the major attractions in a day. The trick is to pick the best guided tour. Thanks to TripAdvisor, I was able to identify the best tour in San Francisco – Dylan’s Tour which is run by a San Franciscan.

Dylan’s mini bus picked us up from Union Square next morning. Small group size and a very knowledgeable tour guide on board made this tour totally worth it. The tour was very well planned and in around 5 hours, pretty much covered almost all major city attractions with adequate number of stops for taking pictures and stop by at a famous eatery for lunch. Our tour guide, Jack, a friendly SF native had excellent and in-depth information about the social, historical, cultural, economic and architectural aspects of the city which were presented to us in an interesting way.

Over the next five hours, we got to see the best SF has to offer – Painted Ladies, Mission District, Castro District, Haight – Ashbury, Pacific Heights, Billionaire’s row, Marina District, Fisherman's Wharf, Twin Peaks, City Hall & the Golden Gate Bridge. Additionally, Dylan’s is the only tour which takes you to Marin county which is in the North San Francisco Bay Area. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and went to Sausalito and Muir Woods – home to the oldest living trees of the world.

There’s a famous quote by Rudyard Kipling on SF “San Francisco has only one drawback - it is hard to leave.” One can’t help but be mesmerized by the beauty of San Francisco – the Victorian houses, the cable car piercing through the sloped streets of SF, the breathtaking houses in Pacific Heights, the hustle and bustle of Union Square, Chinatown (the largest concentration of Chinese Americans in the US), the haunting Alcatraz and of course the Golden Gate Bridge.

The beauty of SF lends itself wonderfully to celluloid. This is the city where cult films like Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ (SF and Muir Woods), Will Smith’s ‘Pursuit of Happyness’ and Clint Eastwood’s ‘Dirty Harry’ series have been filmed. Hindi Cinema on its part has done exceedingly well to introduce this beautiful city to Indians through ‘Love Aaj Kal’ and ‘My Name is Khan’.

In addition to its grandeur and beauty, San Francisco comes across as a very liberal and free spirited city. This city was the birthplace of the Gay Rights Movement in the United States, best captured in the 2008 film ‘Milk’ which won Sean Penn an Academy Award for Best Actor. The Hippie Movement is attributed to the Haight-Ashbury district of SF.

The biggest highlight of SF for me was getting to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I am too young to be talking about a Bucket List, but seeing the Golden Gate Bridge was definitely one of the top 10 items on it. The best way to see the bridge is from Marin Headlands where the SF skyline makes for a glorious backdrop to the bridge. With crystal clear blue skies and the blue water beneath, I was extremely lucky to be there on a day when the bridge wasn't enveloped by fog. The cliche ‘words are not enough’ holds true when you want to describe the beauty of the Golden Gate. One has to be there to comprehend its true beauty.

My only day in SF was very memorable. The beauty (I keep repeating that word) of this city has stayed with me ever since. The great song by Scott McKenzie “If you’re going to SanFrancisco” perfectly captures the charm of this city.