Things to do in San Francisco Part 1 Lands End & Golden Gate

Things to do in San Francisco are abundant and amazing. This beautiful, historic city has many hills, views of ocean and bay, incredible architecture, and an wide-ranging food scene. More on San Francisco in Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4!

Lands End or Point Lobos on the western side of San Francisco has long been considered a beautiful area. With the building of the first Cliff House in the 1860s it became a resort or get away from downtown. Attractions included the Cliff House with lodging and restaurant, the Sutro Baths and gardens, a camera obscura, and a beautiful view of the Seal Rocks. Adolph Sutro, a German mining engineer, made a fortune at the Comstock silver mine and used his wealth as a benefactor to the city of San Francisco. The Sutro Baths once included an ocean pool aquarium and a 3-acre bathhouse of 7 swimming pools, each at a different temperature.

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The Cliff House today is the 3^rd structure on the site. It has a very nice gift shop and the Bistro and Sutro’s restaurants. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are available daily. We ate breakfast there at a nice table overlooking Seal Rocks. A specialty is their fresh popovers! The Zinc Bar also serves the full menu and feels like a little piece of Beaux Arts Paris with its zinc countertop and hand-carved back bar from the 1890 Paris World’s Fair.

Cliff House https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/cliff-house.htm
Lands End https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/lands-end.htm
Sutro’s at the Cliff House https://www.opentable.com/sutros-at-the-cliff-house?ref=1068
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The Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museum in Lincoln Park is open Tuesdays through Sundays. If you are an Alfred Hitchcock fan, this is the museum in Vertigo where Kim Novak goes to see the portrait of Carlotta. The museum was a gift of Alma Spreckels to the city in memory of the World War I soldiers of California. The museum has 70 sculptures by Rodin with The Thinker at center stage in the Court of Honor. The museum is known for its European and Ancient art collections. The views of the Golden Gate and the city from the outside are fabulous and the museum is a beautiful gem. http://legionofhonor.famsf.org/

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The Golden Gate Bridge is an icon of San Francisco. The entrance to San Francisco Bay from the ocean is called the Golden Gate. I love the scenes in the Fred Astaire movie Follow the Fleet (1936) where the navy ships are entering the bay before the bridge was built. You can drive over the bridge to visit Sausalito or Muir Woods National Monument.

Muir Woods

There are walking tours of the bridge on Thursdays and Sundays. The Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center has a large parking lot, a gift shop, and two places to eat so you can walk around and get some good views of the bridge. Fort Point is a Civil War-era fort at the base of the bridge that was saved by the chief engineer of the bridge because of its historic masonry work.