Gate way to the stars
Stay in Clint Eastwood’s home. Sip coffee at the cafe where The Godfather was born. San Francisco is a film buff ’s heaven!
WRITER Jack Kerouac described San Francisco in his novel On The Road as ‘the fabulous white city . . . on her 11 mystic hills, with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato patch fog beyond’. The film version of the seminal slacker story is now on release, but nothing beats seeing this startling city for yourself.
It’s more compact than sprawling L.A., less claustrophobic than New York, and with its vertiginous hills, elegant architecture and art deco bridge, is surely one of the world’s most dramatic cities.
As you wander from North Beach to Chinatown or from Pacific Heights to Fisherman’s Wharf, the streets might be familiar: films such as Dirty Harry, Basic Instinct and Vertigo were all shot here.
My old travelling friend, Gareth, and I are staying at the Intercontinental San Francisco, which offers great bay views and a chic bar. From here, it’s an easy walk from Downtown through Theatreland and Union Square and up through Chinatown, past jade-faced dragons and chop suey alleys bubbling with steam.
Just beyond is North Beach, the spiritual turf of the Fifties’ Beat writers and famous for its bookstores, Italian restaurants, strip joints and jazz bars. You can buy a novel from the City Lights Bookstore, then visit absinthe- laced Vesuvio, a bohemian watering-hole decked in low-lit tiffany lights. Kerouac used to drink here.
Over the road is Café Trieste where Coppola worked on the screenplay for The Godfather. As we pass by, the tinkle of jazz piano and aroma of Arabica lures.
For some, San Francisco will forever be associated with Steve McQueen’s unforgettable car chase in Bullitt. For me, it speaks of 1967 and the Summer Of Love, which started in a haze of hallucinogenics in hillside Haight Ashbury.
Today, the pastel-coloured streets of turreted Victorian buildings, murals, tattoo parlours and thrift shops retain a sense of hippy counter culture. We eat in Magnolia, a Haight Ashbury institution. The shabby- chic restaurant is also a micro-brewery.
Fisherman’s Wharf is San Francisco’s number one tourist draw and your first real encounter with the bay. With its seafood stalls, boardwalks, piers and kitsch souvenir, it feels traditionally American. This is the place to catch a boat to forbidding Alcatraz Island.
The former maximum-security penitentiary, only a mile and a half from the wharf, incarcerated some of America’s most hardened criminals. Its wardens encouraged the myth of shark-infested waters as a deterrent to those planning escape. But drowning from the lethal currents that swirl around Alcatraz was a real threat.
Stepping down on to the Alcatraz quayside surrounded by tourists rather diminishes the experience, but follow the excellent audio tour at your own pace past the 9ft by 5ft cells and you get a feel for this chilling place.
On clear nights the inmates could hear the tinkle of women’s laughter dancing over the bay from the yacht club.
Back at Fisherman’s Wharf, after some takeaway shrimps and a look at the huge sea lions at Pier 39, we hike to the top of nearby Telegraph Hill to catch the sunset over the Golden Gate. Home to wild parrots, the hill’s wooded summit is crowned by the art deco Coit Tower, its shape reminiscent of a fire-hose nozzle.
Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy grand dame, bequeathed it in honour of the city’s fire service. The top of the tower provides some of the best views of San Fran.
On our last night we go for dinner at the Epic Roasthouse, which is decked out like an old pump house on the waterfront under the beams of the Bay Bridge. It serves the best T-bone steak I’ve eaten.
If you have time, a night’s stay or day trip to the former fishing village of Sausalito is worthwhile. A half-hour’s boat journey from San Fran’s Ferry Building takes you across the bay to this pretty little community brimming with
Showstopper: The Golden Gate Bridge. Inset: Vertigo
delis, coffee shops, seafood restaurants and galleries.
Right by the jetty is the Inn Above Tide hotel, a former residence of Clint Eastwood and the perfect place to ponder pelicans diving in the bay and the drama of the city’s skyline etched against the sunset.
From Sausalito you can borrow one of the hotel’s mountain bikes, catch the ferry back to the city and cycle the few miles along the Embarcadero past Fisherman’s Wharf and on up the coast to ride back across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Freewheeling downhill at the Sausalito end of the bridge is exhilarating. Jack Kerouac was right: this city is truly fabulous.