10 Top Tourist Attractions in San Francisco

Last updated on November 2, 2017

San Francisco, everyone’s favorite city, is located at the tip of a peninsula

between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific coast. A compact city of steep
rolling hills surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco is renowned for its
summer fogs, Victorian architecture, cable cars and beautiful vistas. Just
remember: Don’t call it Frisco and do bring warm clothing. The famous quote
“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” isn’t from Mark
Twain but it is a pretty accurate statement of San Francisco’s weather. An
overview of the top tourist attractions in San Francisco:

10. Palace of Fine Arts

The only structure remaining from
the 1915 World’s Fair, the Palace
of Fine Arts features a classical
Roman rotunda with curved
colonnades situated in an idyllic
park setting with a classical
European-Style lagoon. It’s a great
place to unwind, have a picnic,
and watch the swans float
elegantly by. It also has a theater
offering a variety of shows,
musical and cultural events.

9. San Francisco's Chinatown

Established in 1840s, San
Francisco’s Chinatown is reputed
to be the oldest and one of the
largest and most famous of all
Chinatowns outside of Asia. Many
of the Chinese who settled here
were merchants or immigrant
workers, working on either the
transcontinental railroad or as mine
workers during the Gold Rush. The
tourist section of Chinatown is
mainly along Grant Avenue, from
Bush to Broadway.
8. Alamo Square

The Alamo Square is a is a residential neighborhood and park that is best known
for the famous Painted Ladies row of
Victorian houses on its east side along
Steiner Street. It is often the subject of
many a San Francisco postcard. There
are also many other pretty Victorians
encircling the lovely park. The park
includes a playground and a tennis court,
and is frequented by neighbors, tourists,
and dog owners. On a clear day, the
Transamerica Pyramid building and the
tops of the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge can be seen from the park’s
center.

7. Transamerica Pyramid

Located in the heart of the Financial

District., the Transamerica Pyramid is San
Francisco’s other famous icon besides the
Golden Gate. According to its architect,
William L. Pereira, a pyramid is the ideal
shape for skyscrapers, offering the
advantage of letting more air and light in
the streets below. Finished in 1972, the
Transamerica Pyramid has a height of 260
meters (853 feet) and is still the tallest
building in the San Francisco skyline.

6. Lombard Street

Located between Hyde and Leavenworth

streets, Lombard Street is famously known as
the “crookedest street in the world” although it is
neither the crookedest street in San Francisco
(Vermont Street is) nor the steepest. The one-
block portion of Lombard Street that contains
eight hairpin turns was created to reduce the
hill’s natural steep slope. The speed limit in this
section is a mere 5 mph (8 km/h).
5. Golden Gate Park
Once an area of sand dunes, Golden Gate Park is
a large urban park with windmills, bison, museums,
lakes and a carousel among its many attractions.
At 1,017 acres, it is about 20% larger than New
York’s Central Park, so unless you have a bike,
you’ll want to plan which area you want to visit. A
popular tourist attraction is the Japanese Tea
Garden with beautiful plants, ponds, bridges, and
Japanese-style structures including a tea house.

4. Cable Cars
The world-famous Cable Cars run on
three lines in the steep streets of San
Francisco between Market Street and
Fisherman’s Wharf. These cars are a fun
ride, especially if you get to stand on the
running board, if a bit impractical for
everyday use though residents do, in
fact, use them on a regular basis. The
cable car is such an attraction that,
especially on weekends, it takes longer
to wait in line to ride up Powell Street than it does to walk the short but sloping
distance.

3. Alcatraz
Often referred to as The Rock, the small
island of Alcatraz served as a lighthouse,
a military fortification, and as a prison. It
was home to some of the most notorious
criminals of the time including Al Capone
and Machine Gun Kelly. Surrounded by
the freezing water of San Francisco Bay,
Alcatraz was believed to be inescapable.
The most famous attempt was carried out
by Frank Morris, and brothers John and
Clarence Anglin using an inflatable raft
made from several stolen raincoats. Today, the island is a popular San Francisco
tourist attraction and a historic site. It is operated by the National Park Service
and is open to tours.
2. Fisherman's Wharf

One of the most popular tourist attractions in San

Francisco and even the US, Fisherman’s Wharf
runs all the way from Pier 39 through to Municipal
Pier at the end of Aquatic Park. For over a
century its historic waterfront was the hub of San
Francisco’s fishing fleet and is still famous for
having some of the best seafood restaurants in
the city. Other tourist attractions at the wharf
include museums, souvenir stores, historical buildings, scenic vistas over the Bay
and the famous sea lions at Pier 39.

1. Golden Gate Bridge [Where to Stay]

The Golden Gate Bridge is a

suspension bridge spanning the
Golden Gate, the strait between
San Francisco and Marin County
to the north. The bridge took four
years to build, and was
completed in 1937. The Golden
Gate Bridge was the longest
suspension bridge span in the
world when it was completed, and
has become an internationally
recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. The famous red-orange color
of the bridge was specifically chosen to make the bridge more easily visible
through the thick fog that frequently shrouds the bridge.
Silicon Valley is a name that is synonymous with the technology industry, but when and how did
this small area of California become the center of the tech world? The area's transformation
happened gradually, over a period of more than 100 years. Here's how.

Silicon Valley is an almost $3 trillion neighborhood thanks to companies like Apple, Google, and
Tesla. But it wasn't always this way.

In the late 1800s, San Francisco's port helped make it a hub of the early telegraph and radio
industries. In 1909, San José became home to one of the US's first radio stations. In 1933, the
Navy purchased Moffett Field to dock and maintain the USS Macon. This made Moffett Field a
major hub for the early days of the aerospace industry. Many scientists and researchers all
found work in the area. In 1939, the Ames Research Center was founded in the area, and it
became home to the world's largest wind tunnel in 1949.

Also in 1939, William Hewlett and Dave Packard founded Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, which
originally made oscilloscopes. Then, during World War II, HP made radar and artillery
technology. At this point, computers were about the size of a room.

In the 1940s, William Shockley coinvented the transistor while at Bell Labs. The transistor is now
known as the computer processor. In 1956, Shockley left Bell and founded his own company
— Shockley Semiconductor Labs. It was the first company to make transistors out of silicon and
not germanium. The company was founded in Mountain View, California — so Shockley could be
closer to his sick mother. Shockley's company employed many recent grads of Stanford.

In 1957, eight Shockley employees grew tired of his demeanor and left the company. Shockley
called the group the "Traitorous Eight." They partnered with Sherman Fairchild to create
Fairchild Semiconductor. In the early 1960s, Fairchild helped make computer components for the
Apollo program. Later in the decade, many of the "Traitorous Eight" left Fairchild and
founded their own companies. Including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, who in 1968 founded
their own company in Santa Clara called Intel. Soon after, other ex-Fairchild employees and
"Traitorous Eight" members helped found AMD, Nvidia, and venture fund Kleiner Perkins.

In 1969, the Stanford Research Institute became one of the four nodes of ARPANET. A
government research project that would go on to become the internet. In 1970, Xerox opened its
PARC lab in Palo Alto. PARC invented early computing tech, including ethernet computing and
the graphical user interface. In 1971, journalist Don Hoefler titled a 3-part report on the
semiconductor industry "SILICON VALLEY USA." The name stuck.

In the 1970s, companies like Atari, Apple, and Oracle were all founded in the area In the 1980s,
Silicon Valley became the widely accepted center of the computer industry. eBay, Yahoo, PayPal,
and Google are just some of the companies founded in the area in the 1990s With Facebook,
Twitter, Uber, and Tesla joining them the following decade. The growth of the tech industry in
the area continues to this day.

http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-history-technology-industry-animated-timeline-video-2017-
5