About San Francisco

San Francisco has an atmosphere of genteel chic mixed with offbeat innovation and a self-effacing quality so blatantly missing from brassy New York and plastic LA. Its hilly streets provide some gorgeous glimpses of the sparkling bay and its famous bridges.

The treats of San Francisco are not just for locals. The basic pleasures of life here - wonderful food, sparkling nightlife and those glorious views - are there for everyone. Watch the white fog fill the Golden Gate as the sunset lights up the windows across the bay, and prepare to leave your heart.

The best way to explore San Francisco's neighbourhoods is on foot. A leisurely stroll through North Beach, with its relaxed European charm, leads smack into bustling Chinatown. A hike up hoity-toity Nob Hill segues down to the troubled Tenderloin. South of Market, a busy warehouse district during the day, transforms into nightclub central at night. The Mission District is varied: many of its streets are Latino enclaves, but a continuous flow of hip young invaders has redefined many of the district's crossroads. The nearby Castro was claimed by gay men in the 1970s, and it remains predominantly gay today, projecting an assured, almost mainstream air.

Warning

A strike affecting 4,000 hotel workers and 14 of San Francisco's largest hotels looks set to continue for another week while talks stall between the union representing the workers and the hotel operators.

Initially affecting four hotels, the Argent Hotel, the Crowne Plaza Union Square, the Hilton and the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, a loackout of union employees has spread to the Fairmont, Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt San Francisco, Holiday Inn Civic Center, Holiday Inn Express & Suites Fisherman's Wharf, Holiday Inn at Fisherman's Wharf, Palace, Hyatt Regency, Omni and Westin St. Francis hotels.

Travellers are advised to confirm their hotel bookings prior to arrival in San Francisco and contact their accommodation directly for further information.

Area: 127 sq km
Population: 775,000
Country: USA
Time Zone: GMT/UTC -8 (Pacific Time)
Telephone Area Code: San Francisco and Marin County 415; Oakland and Berkeley 510; the Peninsula 650; Wine Country 707; San Jose 408 and Santa Cruz 831

Orientation

San Francisco covers the tip of a 50km (30mi) peninsula in Northern California, with the Pacific Ocean on its western side and the San Francisco Bay to the north and east. San Fran is actually just one of many cities in the Bay Area; others include Oakland (east across the Bay Bridge), Berkeley (just north of Oakland) and San Jose (an hour's drive southeast of San Francisco, near the southern tip of the bay). Marin County and the Wine Country lie to the north, across the Golden Gate Bridge.

The most touristed part of the city resembles a slice of pie, with Van Ness Ave and Market St making the two sides and the Embarcadero the round edge. The steaming toppings of this homebaked slice are the classy shops around Union Square, the highrise Financial District, the classy Civic Center, the down-and-out but up-and-coming Tenderloin, swanky Nob Hill and Russian Hill, Chinatown, North Beach and the epicentre of tourist kitsch, Fisherman's Wharf. To the south of Market St lies SoMa, an upwardly mobile warehouse zone of clubs and bars that fades in the southwest into the Mission - the city's Latino quarter - and then the Castro, the centre of gay life.

The vast swathe from Van Ness Ave west to the Pacific Ocean encompasses upscale neighbourhoods like the Marina and Pacific Heights, ethnically diverse zones like the Richmond and Sunset Districts and the self-conscious timewarp of Haight-Ashbury. Three of the city's great parklands - the Presidio, Lincoln Park and Golden Gate Park - are also in this area.

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