I’ve been invited by a friend to go to San Francisco for Christmas and New Year, and we need ideas for things to do to fill up the days! He’ll be working for a few hours each morning but we have the rest of the time for ourselves. We’ll be there from the 12/22 to 1/3 I think so we’ll need ideas of where to be for New Year’s Eve (which is also my birthday).
Any Dopers from the area have any recommendations on places to go, things to see, where to eat/drink, etc. etc.
Thanks in advance
Tuco.
Oooh, ooh, no one else has responded yet!
A few good things to do in SF:
If you like nature:
If you like art:
General Tourist Stuff:
Just a few suggestions, but biased towards my own interests and not yours :dubious: … what kind of stuff do you like to do?
Well, **Wevets **covered about everything, but let me weigh in with additional votes in favor of:
The Exploratorium. Plan to spend at least 4 hours here, unless you do not like to play with science stuff that’s made to be played with.
Alcatraz. Again, a half-day worth of stuff, mostly because there’s a boat ride to get there. The audio tour is definitely worth it. And wear warm clothes – it’s COLD on The Rock.
The Museum of Asian Art. Beautiful stuff there. Worth at least two hours, probably more.
Oh, and bear in mind that the posted hours of operation for shops are really more like guidelines. For whatever reason, places may open up to half an hour later than posted or close up to an hour earlier. I’ve had this happen on multiple occasions, and have been informed by my SF-resident friends that “that’s just the way it is.”
Just a general reminder: you’re going to be in Northern California. Bring a coat: it’s nothing like what you see on Baywatch. S.F. in December is cold, very foggy, and often rainy.
You should feel right at home.
What Miller said. A friend who came out to visit a while back said that the motto of the city should be “Bring a jacket!” Be aware that the microclimates can sometimes mean a 20-degree difference* in temperature from one block to the next.
wevets has you covered for suggestions. I’d just second the recommendation for the Mechanical Museum; that to me is one of the things that pretty much sums up the feel of the city – historic and weird. And if you have a car, take a drive down Lombard St. When you have a bunch of cars lined up to drive down a really curvy road, it really hits home that SF feels more like a theme park than an actual functioning city.
I’d also add a trip to Ghirardelli Square. Yes, it’s tourist central, but you know, you’ll be a tourist. It’s got a great view of the bay and the bridges. And the ice cream parlor there is just astounding. I recommend the Cable Car.
Walk across the Golden Gate bridge, there is a heck of a lot of water flowing through that narrow channel. You can also see why so many folks commit suicide
off it .
Pt Reyes is nice in the winter. Hardly anyone there.
I’d skip Ocean Beach and visit Baker Beach, or maybe China Beach. Baker is cleaner and better-looking, IMO. It’s inside the Presidio at 25th Ave. The northern end is a nude beach, though January in SF isn’t very ball-friendly (well, weather-wise at least). China Beach is in the Sea Cliff, approachable from 32nd Ave. It’s a small hike from the street to the beach, but it offers great views, and is small and intimate. Robin Williams’ house is right above it, with a wire-frame dinosaur in the yard.
I live in the south bay, but when people come out to visit me I usually make them watch Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and then go on a Vertigo tour of San Francisco. We go up to Coit Tower, drive around some of the older negihborhoods, go to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, and visit Mission Dolores.
Then I take them to Old Fort Point and push them in the ocean.
Ha! Just kidding. There are big fences up now and you can’t get to that side of the fort anymore.
Still, that’s a cool place to go, with great views of the underside of the Golden Gate bridge. And it’s sort of a museum-in-progress.
I’ll also second the Cable Car Museum. Not only is it a museum, but it’s also a working part of the cable car line. It has nothing to do with Vertigo.
Lately I’ve been considering renting a '67 Mustang and going on Bullitt tour of San Francisco, but that might be a little too fast moving to really see that much. Plus I hate driving a manual transmission in the city.
New Years eve can get a bit crazy. If you’re interested in going out to clubs that night, find out what the cover charges will be before heading out. A couple years ago we went to 1015 Folsom and waited in line only to discover that the cover was something like $75. I think we wound up at the DNA lounge, and I don’t rembember what that cover was, but it was somewhat reasonable.
Drive south a little ways on Highway 1 and you’ll get to Fort Funston. Unless there’s a thunderstorm, you’ll probably see a bunch of hang gliders. You can also walk around the fort and see the WWII era defenses. It’s also an awesome place to watch sunsets.
Drive north into Sonoma County and check out Bodega Bay. It’s an old fishing town with cool shops, great seafood, and a little teeny place called the Compass Rose Gardens where I got married to available light. It looks like some old rundown lot from the outside, but inside the gate lies a very beautiful garden. Plus they have the actual gazebo used in The Birds, although it was located somewhere else at the time.
Eat dim sum at Yank Sing restaurant in the Rincon Center, at the east end of Market Street. It’s pretty expensive and the parking garage will probably drive you insane, but it is excellent.
Take a boat ride out to the Farallon Islands to see some marine wildlife. I haven’t actually done that myself, but my mom has.
I’m big into walking and hiking, so not sure how these might affect you, but:
Climb up Twin Peaks. Great views, but this will be a challenging effort.
Walk from downtown to the piers. If possible head down California St or through Chinatown. Preferably start in Union Square. You’ll get to see different parts of town and you can always ride a trolley back if tired.
As you are randomly passing residences for sale, look at the selling prices and sizes. If you are like me, you’ll be thankful for where you live.
Search out a good driving tour. We did one that took all day, but it took us through every major enclave and still allowed plenty of time to explore Golden Gate Park and a few other areas.
And I’ll be next person to highly recommend the audio tour of Alcatrz. It is really a must do.
This is always a contentious issue, but I’ll give it a whack.
Cadillac Bar and Grill has so-so food, but great atmosphere and the tequila shooters are fantastic!
You must eat the ‘bread of the gods’ at Boudin Bakery. While you’re near there (Fisherman’s Wharf area), get yourself a clam chowder in a bread bowl. Yum!
Kuleto’s by Union Square has very good food and drink.
I love drinking and watching the sunset from the Cliff House, which is on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Breathtaking.
One of my favorite places to eat and drink is across the bay in Berkeley: Skates on the Bay, which has a great bar, delicious food, and huge picture windows looking across the bay towards San Francisco.
I’ll second what others have already recommended. Re the cable car ride, it’s pretty touristy, but still a lot of fun and a good way see some of the city.
Did anyone mention Hyde Street Pier? Before the bridge, the ferry to Sausalito used to dock there; and they have a maritime museum there. The Powell Street cable line ends there.
North Beach is a fun place to hang out. There’s a bar called “The Saloon” on Grant St., and several others in the area where they have live music, mostly rock and/or blues bands. If The Bachelors are still playing at The Saloon, don’t miss them. For a change of pace you can go to Jazz At Pearl’s, also in the vicinity. You’ll think you’re in a 1940 movie.
I’m going to have to disagree with Miller on the coat recommendation–even though he lives there and I don’t–, at least for daytime sightseeing. My experience with winter weather in San Francisco is that it’s changeable. The sun’ll go behind a cloud, and then you’re cold. But then it’ll come out again, and you’re warm. A thick sweater would be a better way to go, since nothing’s worse than having to go about for hours with a jacket on your arm.
I mean, I live in L.A., where we bring out the earmuffs when the temperature drops below 72F, as people elsewhere imagine it. So if I didn’t need a jacket in the daytime then Tuco probably won’t want one either.
Chinatown was great, because it wasn’t ‘propped up’ like other touristy places (even though the touristy places are still good).
I walked all over SF one day, alone, and enjoyed just picking any ol’ place in Chinatown to eat.
I did that too (minus the Chinatown part). I took the bus up from Haight and Masonic, near where I was staying, and went to the Exploratorium. When I was done there I completed a huge circle almost entirely on foot. I walked almost the entire length of Lombard street to Coit Tower, then down Montgomery. At Powell, I got on the BART for a couple of stations, and then got out at Civic Center and walked up Haight to my hotel, just south of the Panhandle.
Regarding my earlier comment about coats: for me, at least, extensive walking really warms me up and makes it hard for me to bear any outerwear. Even a sweater tied around my waist can be uncomfortable.
Another unusual place to eat is Green’s:
http://greensrest.citysearch.com/
It’s vegetarian, but pretty upscale, with very fresh imaginative food, and the view is terrific. (You can probably find some of their cookbooks at your local bookstore if you are curious about the food.) There are also some nice gift shops, etc., to explore out there at Fort Mason.
Gold! One of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. I’ve only just now stopped giggling.
If you can get tickets take in the San Francisco Ballet’s annual production of The Nutcracker at the War Memorial Opera House. Look for my brother behind the kettle drums in the orchestra pit. Beautiful music and a first class ballet company.
Nobody yet has mentioned the tour of the U.S.S. Pampinito, a WWII Gato Class submarine permanently moored at Pier 45. There’s a recording-guided tour that lets you really feel what it was like being a submariner on patrol. You won’t believe how cramped the spaces are. The old movies make everything look much larger than the reality.
Take a stroll down Steiner Street and view the Victorian “painted ladies” row houses you’ve no doubt seen in magazine ads and television commercials.
Take a camera.
This thread is bringing back fond memories. I lived in the Bay area for about five years, approximately 15 years ago, so please bear with me. A nice place to have drinks in is this bar on Pier 39 in San Francisco at sunset. At that time, the light show plays against the Golden Gate bridge and makes it shimmer. Along with the fog rolling in and out, well the mood is just magical. As for food, there’s this little hole in the wall Italian place called Little Joe’s in the italian section of San Francisco. I’m thinking it’s on Broadway? Anyway, the portions were large, and fragrant with lashings of garlic and the prices were reasonable. I don’t know if this is of any interest to you, but there’s a fabric store called Britex which carries fabulous fabrics from around the world, silks, cashmeres, tweeds, etc. If you were interested in a suit, you could buy your own fabric at Britex and have a tailor make it up for you. I hope this message helps.
My previous post on this topic.
Enjoy that great city!
I used to telemarket for the SF Ballet! Good times. The room that we called from overlooked a couple of the practice spaces, affording us the opportunity to see the dancers in action. And the ballet gave us tickets to performances every now and then.