Trip to the source of the summer of love
SARAH WALTERS in hippies’ birthplace San Francisco
IT’S 50 years since the hippie music movement changed San Francisco from the Californian home of the Beat Generation into the seat of the Summer of Love.
The most iconic songwriters of the day hung out here - from The Grateful Dead to Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix – calling the now globally famous Haight-Ashbury crossroads home, making music and love, experimenting with potent hallucinogenic drugs, and tie-dying their wardrobes in groovy multi-colours.
It’s believed more than 100,000 young hippies came to the city that summer to be part of the movement; half a century on, they still come to shop in the clothing stores here. Drop into the right vintage shop - specifically Decades Of Fashion, on Haight - and you’ll even find one of the original gang who came here as an impressionable teen and aspiring model but never left, and is still impossibly glamorous and making her living as owner of one of the top heritage clothing joints in town.
Honestly, the opportunity to sit still on Haight’s long, flat highway between San Fran’s monster hills - talking tie-dye and riffling through the racks of music in the giant Amoeba Music store (a bowling alley turned record emporium) - might have convinced me to sign up on the dotted hippie line, too.
That, and the city’s celebrated clement climate – which sadly shows no sign of coming out when I visit.
I see Frisco in a situation that shocks my hotel’s concierge to the core: in the pouring rain. You can take the girl out of Manchester, but it seems she’ll pack the kitchen sink and the clouds. The thought never occurred that a trip to the sunshine state would require a brolly…
Still, there’s no urgency to throw myself out into the showers. For a start, I’ve got my feet up in the city’s sharp new musicinspired digs, Hotel Zeppelin on Post Street, inside the business district.
A maze of neatly luxurious bedrooms, it also has a pretty cool breakout room and bar full of toys and ball games to kill some rainy hours in. Everyone should shoot a few hoops on an American holiday.
Secondly, this is a laid back town. Super laid back. Which is just as well, because there’s no tackling those hills in a hurry. One hike from Union Square up Powell Street is evidence enough why even the locals still use the iconic old trams to go up and over the hills.
Consequently, don’t expect a tourist’s welcome once you’re on board one; they’re a must do and super cool, but any attempts to hang off the side to take a memento photo will be met with disdain by the driver.
Hopefully the meteorological effects of this Mancunian visiting Frisco isn’t a bad omen for the area, which began its first direct flights between the destinations on Virgin Atlantic last month.
It’s a natural meeting of minds, if not climates; San Fran is, physically and geographically, nothing like Manchester but its cultural interests are deeply shared: music, art, fashion, high-end shopping, and an outlook formulated by its staunch sense of independence.
If the weather is agreeable when you go, a Summer Of Love celebratory trip should start on board the city’s independently run Magic Bus Tour. Run by a bunch of former Summer Of Lovers and kitted out with mirror balls and a stereo dominated by The Byrds and The Mamas & The Papas, it’s a winding journey around the memorial spots made famous by the men and women who made 1967 their moment.
Contrast that, too, with a walking tour around North Beach, the former seat of the Beat Generation where Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg shopped in the still standing City Lights Bookstore and debated modern values in the exquisite Vesuvio Cafe with the likes of Bob Dylan next door.
Don’t miss San Fran’s oldest bar here either: The Saloon – in truth, not much to look at, but they’ve been pulling pints at this spit and sawdust live music spot since 1861 and you can sit at a wooden bar installed just a couple of years later while you enjoy the free blues bands who play daily.
Like most cosmopolitan cities, San Francisco is a city of food and drink extremes.
For every Saloon (you’ll find a few quite historic spots if you dig hard enough), there’s a Chambers at The Phoenix Hotel or a Whitechapel gin bar.
Both of these are sharp, upmarket, modern: refined dining in the former; on trend cocktails in the other, which is designed to look like an old London Tube station. Try Whitechapel’s flaming Warm Winter Bowl of gin punch - it’s not exactly delicious, but it’ll leave you balancing somewhat precariously on the high stools. I find a better hidden gem close to my hotel, Bourbon & Branch - accessible through a secret door with a code word. No photos, and no social media allowed, but the best Old Fashioneds in town.
For a sign that San Fran isn’t entirely giving itself over to such gentrification, head to the Mission district for a wander around.
The place is still fiercely independent; once the seat of the Lesbian and Gay community, it’s now the go-to for street artists whose work adorns the walls around every corner.
It’s also home to the Mission San Francisco de Asís, the oldest surviving structure in San Fran dating from 1776, and the best bakery - Tartine, where locals queue for bread for hours before it opens.
It’s an encouraging sign that, half a century on, San Francisco still knows how doing things differently can draw a decent crowd.