The city is renowned for its steep streets with panoramic views of beautiful San Francisco bay and the surrounding mountains.
It has a very moderate climate with warm summers and chilly winters but without extremes. Constant breezes off of the Pacific Ocean keep the summers from becoming too hot and also prevent freezing winter weather. Take a sweater, as the evening breezes can be quite brisk all year round.
Oakland and Berkley, California lies just across the bay from San Francisco and are easily accessible via the Bay Bridge. The more famous Golden Gate Bridge spans the narrow inlet that extends from the Pacific Ocean into the bay. The Golden Gate Bridge connects San Francisco with a mountainous peninsula called the Marin headlands that is primarily known for beautiful scenery and expensive homes with spectacular views.
Sausalito, a small village on the bay shore of the Marin headlands is famous as a local artists community. Alcatraz Island with its abandoned prison is situated in the middle. The city of San Jose lies about 30 miles south at the southern tip of this extensive bay. The area near San Jose and Santa Clara is known as Silicon Valley home of the largest concentration of electronics and computer firms in the USA.
It was founded in 1776 when father Junipero Serra constructed the mission San Dolores to Christianize the local native Indian population.
At the same time, Spanish troops constructed a Presidio, or fort, to protect this colony for the Queen of Spain. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the village of Yerba Buena, consisting of whalers, traders, adventurers and pirates, occupied the present site.
In 1848, gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains about 100 miles to the east. By 1849,it was inundated with forty niners as the gold seekers were commonly called, and the population of the city exploded. Ever since, it has remained the centre of commerce, entertainment, culture and tourism for Northern California.
San Francisco is one of the most popular vacation destinations in the USA. Steep streets lined with Victorian era houses, a great turquoise bay surrounded by low mountains, and antique cable cars that still shuttle passengers up and down the city slopes all make it one of the most picturesque cities in the US.
