Golden Gate Park, Top Tourist Attraction in San Francisco

Golden Gate Park is one of the famous San Francisco’s tourist attractions probably covers the 1,017 acre (or 411 ha) area and becomes larger than New York’s Central Park. The park is also the most highly visited picnic point as every year around 13 million people come to enjoy the attractions in Golden Gate Park. The most popular attraction there is its lovely gardens. Golden Gate Park is located between Haight Ashbury and the Pacific Ocean in downtown San Francisco.

Since it started to take shape in the late 1800s, it has become a favorite gathering place in San Francisco. According to history, William Hammond Hall (a civil engineer) was hired to design the park, in 1871. The design was inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted (creator of the Central Park in New York). A hilly park with various beautiful landscape, lakes, ridges, meadows, and zigzag roads was created by him. William Hammond built a dike to protect the park from sea waves. After performing a good job he became the first commissioner of the park in 1871 and remained on the post for 56 years. During his period he planted thousands of plants and converted the barren area into a green park.  

Conservatory of Flowers

Visiting to eastern side of the park will unveil the actual beauty of the Golden Gate Park. Here visitors can find the conservatory of flowers, which is among the largest of its kind in USA. A wonderful Victorian style botanical greenhouse was built between 1876 and 1883, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The greenhouse has more than 1,700 plant species for visitors to enjoy.

Bridge over Lake

Another top attraction of Golden Gate Park is the famous Japanese Tea Garden which has been there since 1894. The garden was built to display the Japanese lifestyle. It covers a 5 acres area, featuring a tea-house, small bridges over lake, ponds, sculptures, and other native Japanese plants. It makes it the oldest Japanese garden in the country.

Golden Gate Children Park

Some other beautiful features of the Golden Gate Park such as a fragrant Rose Garden, splendid botanical garden, and the Steinhart aquarium that can be found at the Strybing Abroretum are special to visit and enjoy the variety of plants which are more than 7000. The Golden Gate Park also features sports facilities including tennis courts, golf, biking, fly-fishing, petanque, inline, archery, handball, skating, and riding stables. A wooded path through the park can be used for jogging or strolling, while paved path use for cycling. 

Awesome View of Golden Gate Garden

Cable Cars, Top Attraction in San Francisco

While creating the list of San Francisco most popular attractions, the cables car is on top. An antique of 20^th century’s streetcars are still in operation and it may look like they were especially made for tourists. Both tourists and natives in San Francisco have done it every day.

San Francisco’s cable cars history stars from 1852, when a wire-rope factory owner Andrew Smith Hallidie (born in England) came to California and stayed in there. He was a gold miner. During his period he saw streetcar accident causing the death of five horses. At that time the horses were used to draw the street cars. The heavy load becomes the cause of death. He decided to use wire-ropes for pulling cars in mines and build the first cable car in San Francisco.

The first cable San Francisco car, also known as the Clay Street Hill Railroad, opened in 1873. Become a model for other San Francisco cable car transit systems and for similar transit systems in other cities such as city of Chicago opened its own cable car service in 1882, and city of Dunedin of New Zealand followed suit in 1881. Most of them switched to electric streetcars in late 19^th century.

In early nineteenth century earthquake caused the decline of cable cars and most of them converted into electric streetcars. In 1947 Mayor Roger Lapham proposed to close the cable car system. But a joint meeting of committee formed a successful campaign to save the cable car system and keep them in operation. In 1951 though, several lines were shut down, leading to the three Cable lines, due to shortage of funds and company was unable to afford the insurance, so the lines were purchased by city and opened them in 1952, but failed to protect them. Plan was created to convert them with buses. Between 1980 –1984, a deplorable form cable car system was rebuilt with renovated cars.

Currently the cable car network consists of three, Powell Mason (runs over Nob Hill, and Russian Hill, while ends up at Aquatic Park), Powell Hyde (runs over Nob Hill to Fisherman’s Wharf), and California lines (runs from the Financial District over Chinatown, Nob Hill to the Van Ness Avenue). The first two start at a turntable (a circular revolving plate) at Market & Powell Streets and use single-ended cars while the last one starts at Market & Drumm Streets.

In the Cable Car Museum is also a place to watch or visit. Here you can see the mechanism of engines, cables, gears and brakes that pull the cable cars. The cables are 3.1 centimeters (1.25 inches) thick and several kilometers long.

Riding a cable car is so cheap it only costs $ 7 for a single ride, a special discount for seniors riding before 7am or after 9pm the fare for seniors is only $3.  

Pier 39, Famous Tourists Attraction in San Francisco

Pier 39 is located in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, at Beach Street and The Embarcadero. Location is perfect which provides the picture with perfect backdrop for postcard views of famous Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. Pier 39 boasts shops, restaurants, street performances, the Aquarium of the Bay, and enough activities to spend an enjoyable afternoon at Pier 39. One of the most popular attractions at Pier 39 is colony of sea lions, some of which stay here all year.

Pier 39 is a 45 acre large complex, easily accessible from Fisherman’s Wharf and close to North Beach, Chinatown, and the Embarcadero. It was built in 1905 as a cargo pier but renovated as a fishing village in 1978. Pier 39 remains open from 10 am to 10 pm. it provides you dining, shopping, and entertainments all surrounded there with unbeatable views of the city and the bay. It is one of the busiest place of the city so it’s best reached via public transportation.

Night View of Pier 39

Pier 39 offers spectacular views and browse the local shops which are more than 110 specialty shops with everything from saltwater taffy to left-handed merchandise for lefty people, and a variety of hand-crafted jewelry, also neat clean restaurants serving grilled salmon burgers and the fresh clam chowder in the signature bowl of sourdough. Many of the restaurants specialize in seafood. Hundreds of fast food eateries including ice cream shops and a chocolate shop are at perfect place to past your time with them drinking or eating your favorite food or just enjoy some hot soup to warm you from the fog and watch the sea lions lounging on the docks.

The aquarium of the Bay is another popular tourist attraction on Pier 39. With an affordable admission fare, visitors can get a spectacular view of San Francisco’s fascinating marine life including over 20000 aquatic animals.

The Pier 39 has some romantic spots too such as the North Beach neighborhood is on walking distance from the Pier 39. Here you can see the Italian restaurants, outdoor cafes every-where and Trattorias (an Italian version Ristorante (restaurants), which makes all of its dishes with local ingredients).

It’s a great fun to watch Pier 39’s famous sea lions playing on the surf. These sea lions arrived here in 1990 after the two years of Loma Prieta earthquake. They quickly grew their breed and soon reached in thousands.

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, USA

San Francisco is a popular US city. It has many popular tourist spots that attract millions of visitors and without visiting there your tour is surly incomplete. Along-with God gifted natural beauty such as beaches, rivers, gardens, green hills, and beautiful forests with wild animals the city people created many other platforms which make city even more beautiful and attractive such as some old historic buildings, skyscrapers, a cable car facility to reach atop the steep hills, towers, and famous squares. Aside all these beauty the popularity of the Golden Gate Bridge is standing above all. The famous bridge of San Francisco was the longest and tallest suspension bridge when it was completed in 1937. Due to heavy traffic facing by San Francisco and Marin, its construction arose from the San Francisco and Marin was just too much needed.

Golden Gate Bridge is a masterpiece of engineering. Its construction was started in 1933. Engineer Joseph Strauss convinced the people who did not believe that it can be possible to span such a long bridge and built a 1600 meter wide strait bridge to link San Francisco Bay with Pacific Ocean. Despite facing many weather difficulties Joseph Strauss was able to complete his masterpiece on 27^th June 1937, with the help of thousands workers and 35 million dollars. In opening ceremony 18000 people walked across the bridge, while next day bridge was officially opened for traffic.

Traffic rush on Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate is an art deco suspension bridge having length of 8981 feet. The distance between two towers is 4200 feet long. It remained the long suspension bridge until 1964 when the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York was completed. The towers are 820 feet tall or 250 meters tall. The 20 meter of length of the bridge is below the sea level. The six lane road is 90 feet (27 meters) wide and 220 feet above the water level while today it bears the traffic of more than 120000 vehicles daily. The engineers use the technique to hang the bridge with support of thousands of cables. These cables anchored in hundreds of bars locked into concrete blocks with a pulling power of 25 million Kilograms. The two main cables atop of both sides are made of 27572 threads and having a length of 2332 meters with a diameter of 90 centimeters, connected with several small cables which are using to hold the bridge.

Walkway at Golden Gate Bridge

The 2.73 Kilometer length is still a challenge for those who are using the sidewalk (a paved path) on Golden Gate Bridge. Crossing the bridge by foot is extremely a great experience. You can take a tour by bus available on bus stop right at the start of the bridge. Viewing Golden Gate Bridge from nearby areas is a popular tourist thing to do. Some of the famous points are below

Night View of Golden Gate Bridge

At the San Francisco end the South Vista Point, at the Marin Country end the North Vista Point.

Baker Beach at Presidio Park, and for panorama view the Land’s End from the northern tip of Lincoln Park are the best point to enjoy the beauty of Golden Gate Bridge from different angles.

Some other facts about Golden Gate Bridge

Yearly, 5000 – 10000 gallons of paint are used to repaint the Golden Gate Bridge.

International Orange color is using only to provide the visibility in the fog for passing ships and also because it was a color that fit in naturally to the birdge’s setting and the surrounding land area.

Till today, the Golden Gate Bridge was closed three times since it was opened, due to extreme wind rushing at speed of 70 miles per hour.

According to a web source, the babies have been born on the Golden Gate Bridge are all of them have been boys.