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San Francisco

Eat and geek your way through walking and riding historic trains in the City by the Bay, all in one day

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Overview

First of all, this is about doing the most touristy things. So don’t say “frisco” instead of “San Franciso” if you don’t want to see city natives roll their eyes.

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/San_Francisco

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

This theme song to San Francisco is this:

Click here to see Tony Bennett perform the song on YouTube:
san-francisco-song-qr-300x300.png

I Left My Heart in San Francisco
by Tony Bennett

I left my heart in San Francisco.
High on a hill, it calls to me.
To be where little cable cars
climb halfway to the stars!
Morning fog may chill the air.
I don’t care.
My love waits there, in San Francisco,
Above the blue and windy seaaaaaa.
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
Your golden sun will shine for me!

Ham it up! Raise your hand when you have fun sustaining the words in bold, especially that long “sea” and those last words of the song.

BTW The above video skips past starting lyrics in earlier versions which contain lines about other cities and containing the word “gay” which had a different meaning when Tony Bennett first sang it in 1964. Tony gives the history about the song durig his Live concert December 10, 2002 - 20 songs in an hour (at age 76).

PROTIP: Before you go

  1. Print off a few dozen cards containing lyrics to the song above so you can pass them out for a sing-along while you’re together in a Cable Car.

  2. Two airports are both around 45 minutes from downtown San Francisco:

    • SFO from the south
    • OAK (Oakland) from the East Bay

    Don’t fly into San Jose airport. You’ll have a long and slow ride to San Francisco.

  3. Load a Clipper card into your phone’s wallet (for $20) so you can just wave your phone to enter and exit. It’s also good on Muni buses and streetcars (one of which is named “Desire”).

  4. Install the Muni app to get their one-day pass, which includes cable cars.

  5. On Google Maps, load a map so you can access it offline.

  6. Download the PDF map of cable car routes.

  7. Wear layers and a wind jacket. “The coldest Winter I ever spent was a Summer in San Francisco” was not by Mark Twain.

  8. Watch tourist vlogs about the city.

  9. Watch movies and TV shows filmed in the city. It’s a thrill to recognize locations.

Film locations in San Francisco

Watch some of the 50+ movies and TV shows filmed in San Francisco:

  • Frisco Kid (1935) with James Cagney
  • The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogart
  • Vertigo (1958) with James Stewart
  • Bullitt (1968) with the car chase
  • Dirty Harry 1971 with Clint Eastwood
  • What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
  • High Anxiety (1977) with Mel Brooks
  • Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
  • Escape from Alcatraz (1979) with Sean Connery
  • Sudden Impact (1983) with Clint Eastwood
  • The Woman in Red (1984) with Gene Wilder
  • A View to a Kill (1985) James Bond
  • Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
  • The Dead Pool (1988)
  • The Presidio (1988) with Sean Connery
  • Pacific Heights (1990)
  • Basic Instinct (1992)
  • Bicentennial Man (1992) with Robin Williams
  • Sister Act (1992) & Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993)
  • So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993) with Mike Myers
  • The Rock (1996)
  • The Game (1997) with Michael Douglas
  • Full House TV (Alamo Square)
  • Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) with Robin Williams in Pacific Heights 2640 Steiner Street
  • Monk TV (2002-2009)
  • The Room (2003)
  • Milk (2008)
  • My Name Is Khan (2010) with SRK
  • Contagion (2011)
  • Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) Streaming on Paramount+
  • Blue Jasmine (2013) with Kate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin
  • Ant-Man (2015), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), & Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
  • Always Be My Maybe (2019)
  • Matrix Resurrections (2021)
  • The Last Thing He Told Me with Jennifer Garner

Viator offers $67 Movie Sights tour with commentary.

My Google Tour Map

I actually wrote this page while I tried to A figure out how you can use my Google Route titled “San Francisco highlights”
san-francisco-tour-1862x1270.png
Click here to save it to the Google Maps app on your mobile phone!

My geeky foodie walking tour

  1. At SFO or OAK airport, walk to the BART station to take either BART train (that leaves every 15 minutes) to the Embarcado station. One way, it’s $10 from SFO, $11.40 from OAK.

  2. Have luggage? I’ve walked it (with $10) to the Hyatt Regency hotel at Embarcadero or the 5-star 1 Hotel.

  3. Wait for a vintage Muni street car at the Embarcadero stop of F line that runs between Fisherman’s Wharf to the North and Castro district to the West. Just $2.25 off your Clipper card.

    PROTIP: Use streetcar.live website or the Moovit mobile app to time which historic car you will ride. The F line features old cars bought from around the world: Milan, Italy (in 1928), Melbourne, Australia, London, and Mexico City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, etc. It’s a museum in motion!

    san-francisco-mask-329x301.png NOTE: Masks continue to be advised for all transit riders.

  4. Get off the Don Chee Way & Steuart St stop and walk to 177 Steuart into the gift shop within the Railway Museum to buy their famous mask for introverts: “Information Gladly Given, But Safety Requires Avoiding Unnecessary Conversation”.

    No time? Buy it from their virtual gift shop.

  5. Hungry already? Walk SouthEast kitty-corner for superlative traditional dim sum at Yank Sing (Spear Street) (dine in or to go).

  6. Even better, walk NorthEast across The Embarcadero for the amazing gourmet market inside the Ferry Building under the clock tower and “Port of San Franciso” sign: fancy breads, dog treats, mushrooms, chocolates from around the world, caviar, etc..

    Ring the bell when you’re approaching your stop by pulling the metal cord that runs along the side walls.

  7. Get on another street car and off at the Exploratorium (a hands-on science museum not just for kids).

  8. Take yet another Muni streetcar to Pier 39 to see and hear the icon resident sea lions (not seals).

  9. Stop at Boudine’s (8am-9pm) for New England-Style clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Order online and add bacon.

  10. Musée Mécanique has old-school mechanical coin-operated games and oddities. Free to enter!

  11. Walk Westward along the marina, where every time I buy a $35 windbreaker with “San Francisco” on it.

  12. The “Experience” store is the only Ghirardelli shop where tourists can buy chocolates made in the store, with freshly roasted almonds and hazelnuts. Make a Sundae. Create your own mix among 40 different types of chocolate squares.

  13. Also in Ghirardelli Square is the modern Palette Tea House, which serves Chinese dim sum with bay views.

  14. Take the Powell/Mason Cable Car Turnaround to go up and over Mason Street. It runs from 7am - 11pm daily. $8 per ride.

    This route has a view of the bay behind you. PROTIP: Here’s where you get cable car passengers to sing from those lyrics sheets you printed out.

  15. Get off at the Hyde St & Chestnut St stop to walk down (West to East) Lombard Street – the “Worlds Crookedest Street”. You end up on Leavenworth Street.

  16. san-francisco-sundial-403x448.png on Amazon If you’d like to propose to someone at a quiet place, walk a half block North to read the words on the sundial in the little Fay Park: “GROW OLD ALONG WITH ME. THE BEST IS YET TO BE.” (by Robert Browning)

  17. Walk back up (West) on Chestnut Street to get back on the Cable Car.

  18. Hop off at Washington Street to talk with retired Cable Car operators where they hang out, in the Cable Car Museum.

  19. Walk 5 minutes (0.3 miles) (or get a Uber/Lyft past not much) East on Washington Street to get a drink (to go) at the Yifang Taiwan Fruit Tea.

  20. Walk a block East to turn left (toward Jackson Street) to walk under the red lanterns at Ross Alley for the freshest fortune cookies possible, warm from the cast-iron machines at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. [Wikiwand, VIDEO]

  21. Follow the aroma NorthEast across Jackson Street to the Wong Lee Bakery. It’s one of many Chinese bakeries selling Chinese bakery treats.

    Walk East on Jackson to compare pastries at the Goog Mong Kok Bakery.

  22. Walk down Stockton Street to take a selfie under the Chinatown arch. West of it is the lowest-priced Marriott hotel a block North from the edge of the Tenderloin district (of mental illness, drugs, crime, homelessness on sidewalks). VIDEO

  23. Walk a half-block North on Stockton Street to get on the lightrail train going underground South at the Chinatown Rose Pak Station.

  24. Get off at the Union Square Market St Station. Union Square is the center of San Francisco.

    The St. Fancis hotel and the Rotunda restaurant in Neiman Marcus serve Afternoon tea daily from 2:30 to 4 p.m. (if you have reservations).

    There is also an expansive view through big windows inside the Apple Store at the North side of the square.

  25. If you have time, until you take the BART back to the airport, walk across Market, South to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and other museums, plus shopping around Yerba Buena Gardens:

    • Metron mall, parallel to Market one block South, has IMax movie theaters and big-box stores and restaurants.
    • Westfield mall (parallel to Market one block North) has a food court in the basement. CLOSED in 2023.
    • Trader Joe’s CLOSED 2023
    • VIDEO: The Westfield mall, which had a basement food court, was closed in 2023.

Across Market Street is where the Cable Car route ends at Powell station.

Have a safe flight home!

SFO airport

At SFO, hotel shuttles</>

There are several Marriott properties:

  • San Mateo Marriott San Francisco Airport 650.952.333 (kitchen, 55” Smart HDTV, cook-to-order breakfast, free parking)

  • Fairfield Inn & Suites Millbrae 650.259.0400 shuttle goes til 1030pm

  • Fairfield Inn & Suites South San Francisco 650.822.8880 is South of SFO
  • “Marriott-SFO Airport Waterfront”, 1800 Old Bayshore Hwy, Burlingame, CA 94010, 650.692.9100 is South of SFO
  • “Marriott Hotel”, 780 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103-3113 is South of SFO

Have More Days?

Here are other sights:

San Francisco was published on .