With some 40 hills, cable cars and fog on the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco is a symbol of freedom of spirit, cultural diversity and joie de vivre unique in the United States. San Francisco is now a favourite with artists, intellectuals and marginalized people who are seduced by its unique way of life, and visiting it with one of its inhabitants is an experience not to be missed. Hiking, wine tastings, yoga classes, historical visits or bike rides, there are many possibilities in the city of "Summer of Love".
An open city
San Francisco has always been welcoming. It was the Gold Rush that launched the development of the city and its region. Until 1848, it was a small town that vegetated around the Franciscan mission. With the first nuggets, an ocean of ambition is pouring into the region. All of Northern California is overwhelmed by the arrivants : Sacramento, San Francisco, Shasta attracts the so-called forty-niners. The rush has long since dried up, but the region retains traces : ghost towns like Bodie, the American football team of San Francisco, the 49ers, or the first nugget, kept at UC Berkeley..
One hundred and a few years later, the Californian city has evolved into an artistic refuge for Beat Generation poets and hippies with psychedelic creativity. As an open city, it has also successfully integrated migrants seeking a better life, welcomed the largest gay community on the American continent, and worked to meet the population's demands for urban development, contributing to the rehabilitation of entire neighbourhoods. The poets of the Beat Generation, later known as beatniks, gathered at San Francisco to drag their unease there. Members of a lost generation, they are wandering and looking for meaning in their lives. Often, this translates into endless binge drinking and other orgies, and sometimes into outstanding artistic work. Jack Kerouac is the emblematic writer of the beat movement, supported by publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder and still co-owner of the City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach district. Together with Allen Ginsberg and others, they describe the despair of a whole generation of young Americans. Their neighborhood général ? The North Beach district where they skim the dark bars and literary salons. Today, San Francisco preserves the mark of these writers and poets, and even has a museum entirely dedicated to them, the Beat Museum. Always welcoming to literature and the arts in general, the city vibrates with a literary fibre unparalleled in the United States.
Culture and gastronomy at the rendezvous
Proud and resolutely anchored on the Pacific despite the constant threat of an upcoming earthquake, San Francisco enjoys an exceptional quality of life.
San Francisco is the cultural cradle of the United States. The great American literary and artistic movements that spanned the last century and influenced much of the Western world were born among the hills of San Francisco. Whether it is the literary fertility of the early writers of the American West, the humanistic realism of the authors of the Great Depression, the cultural revolution of the poets of the Beat Generation, the hypercreativity of the hippies of Haight-Ashbury or the artistic experimentation of the new generation, San Francisco is always one step ahead of its time. In 1988, twelve (minor) streets changed their names to honour writers and artists who were born or lived in the area, including Jack London, Jack Kerouac, Bob Kaufman, Samuel Beckett, Dashiell Hammett, Mark Twain and Isadora Duncan.
Ethnic mix and cultural diversity are also reflected in the cuisine. From the lasagna dish to the kogi, we find the spirit of the "Cal cuisine", which focuses above all on the freshness of the local fish products and farms. However, it's good to fulfill your fantasy of double meat and grilled cheese being gobbled up presto in an In-N-Out. Gourmets will take the time to enjoy a Napa or Sonoma produced chardonnay with their seafood platters. Evenings start at Mission, South Market, North Beach or Tenderloin where the best cocktails in town are sipped; it is said that this is where the Martini was created! Then follows the delirious tour of the nightclubs of this bastion of free thinkers
Attacking the American West
San Francisco is also a base for discovering the American West: a few days in San Francisco before taking off for Yosemite Park then to Nevada and Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Arizona, Death Valley and Los Angeles. This classic circuit is not without big gaps! To really appreciate San Francisco, you need to allow a little more than a week. After this first stage, you will have to discover the Pacific coast to the north and south, which is absolutely magnificent, the Valley of the Wine just one hour from San Francisco, the nature of Shasta and Lake Tahoe, before marvelling at the Sierra Nevada and its mountainous landscapes. Northern California is a relatively densely populated area: one car will suffice for transportation. All major sites and interesting counties are about 2 to 5 hours drive from each other. And Northern California is home to a multitude of animal species. It's no coincidence that the California flag represents a bear: many bears live in national parks, as do mountain lions. Grey whales pass off the Pacific Ocean during the great migration season. As for the sea lions, they bask in the harbour of Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. In addition to this emblematic and highly visible fauna, the avifauna, insects and batrachians are of great diversity, some of them endemic, particularly on the coast.
In short, libertarian, high-tech, multicultural, artistic, San Francisco, The Golden City, is also characterized by its ecological fibre, its gentle way of life and its avant-gardism. A unique city that celebrates in 2017 the 50th anniversary of its psychedelic Summer of Love and its hippie craziness. An opportunity to (re)discover a mythical destination in the United States.
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