San Francisco


San Francisco is one of the most interesting cities in the United States and a major tourist centre. It was founded in 1776, when Spanish mission was established there. The city of San Francisco was almost completely damaged by earthquake and fire in 1906 but it was quickly rebuilt. Now it is the second largest city of California and an important financial, commercial and industrial centre on the Pacific ocean. It is surrounded on three sides by the sea. San Francisco has a population of around 730 000 people. With surrounding suburbs it creates San Francisco Bay area. It lies on 46 square miles surrounded on three sides by Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. People who live here love sunny weather. Every year come here many visitors to have a nice holiday and see some monuments of the town.

Golden Gate Bridge is one of the symbols of the city, which was built in 1937. It is 1280 meters long. It links San Francisco with Marin County on the other side of the bay. It is seven-mile long bridge with its unique blend of orange and black and two towers as high as 48-storey building. Although it is coloured red, sometimes, especially at the time of sunset, it seems golden. Many times people of San Francisco wanted to paint it gold, but because it would take too long (approximately four years), it has never happened.

Alcatraz is probably the most famous prison in the world. It is an island in the San Francisco Bay, where a lot of sharks live. Thanks to this fact, no one has escaped from this prison. In 1969 it was closed, because it was very expensive to operate. Until 1963 it served as a super security prison for famous criminals like Al Capone, Mickey Cohen or Robert Stroud. Since 1973 it has been opened to public. Today you can take a ferry ride to visit the prison.

Lombard Street- Because the city lies on very hilly area, San Franciscans have to find various ways to overcome this and by doing so, they have created some interesting and unique features. One of them is Lombard Street, which is called the crookedest street in the world.

The city has an interesting street railway system, which is the combination of street cars, trolley coaches, buses and cable cars. Cable car is a very beautiful vehicle used for public transport. It is a sort of tram, but unlike trams these cars are able to go both up and down the hill.