San Francisco Bay - San Francisco Full City Guide - Travel & Discover

With its shimmering vistas of fog, sun and cityscape, San Francisco Bay is famous worldwide. Yet in some ways it remains very little known. The bay, together with its inland delta, is one of the largest estuaries in the Americas. It is a crucial bird habitat, a vital fishery, a major shipping center, a precious source of water, a playground for the cities that line it, and a natural treasure. Lined with deep water piers, the Embarcadero is literally where one embarks. At the foot of Market Street is the Ferry Building, a vibrant public space housing a food hall, restaurants and a farmer's market. The Ferry Building serves as the marker from which piers are numbered, with odd numbers situated to the north and even numbers to the south. Located inside is the Ferry Building Marketplace, with its gourmet shops and restaurants. An outdoor farmer's market is held seasonally. It also offers splendid vistas of the skyscrapers of the Financial District and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. With the best public transportation system on the West Coast, visitors and locals get around the city not only on San Francisco's world-famous Cable Cars, a postcard-ready site, with excited tourists hanging out the sides, but also on buses and Italian-made trains, as well as the old-fashioned streetcars. San Francisco has the world's most diverse collection of streetcars and regular transit service, including many unique examples from cities around the world. The city also has the most successful streetcar type in American history, painted in tribute liveries to the various cities that operated them. Wall Street West begins at Montgomery Street and extends east towards the Embarcadero. Although San Francisco's Financial District is contained within a few city blocks, it is ranked as one of the top four financial centers in the nation. The Embarcadero was once a busy port, filled with ships loading and unloading passengers, and tons of cargo. Today it is a wide, tree-lined promenade that you can walk along all the way from Market Street at the Ferry Building to Fisherman's Wharf. It's also a great place to watch the boats go by. San Francisco's weather is a bit different from the blue skies and warm temperatures typical of much of California. Since the city is flanked on three sides by water, there is a regular chilly wind that sweeps across the city. The climate is one of the most stable in the world, with the daytime temperatures never venturing much more than a few degrees above 16 degrees Celsius. One of America's most beautiful and romantic cities, San Francisco has a lot to brag about indeed. Poised on a tip of a peninsula on the western coast of the United States, the area surrounding the city has such diverse natural features as rugged coastline, the tranquil waters of the bay, fog-capped hills, and dense forests.