Last Sunday my agenda reported a dinner in San Francisco, so I thought that it could be nice to go there in advance and spend some time around the City in order to give a look at some places that I had not seen yet.

Indeed I left a bit late (as always), so I could not have a huge tour. However, I was very satisfied, eventually: I managed to see a couple of places that could not be missing in my Californian year.

The first stop is in Alamo Square, which is basically a park (indeed super crowded) located on the top of one of SF hills. This square is famous for its view over the City – in particular, the skyscrapers of the Financial District are well visible – but above all for the so called Seven Sisters or Painted Ladies (as usual, the Wikipedia page provides us with useful details).

  

Probably I should have waited a bit longer to have a better light for my pictures, but I could not spend all my night there…

Therefore, I leave Alamo Square and I head Presidio, a park located next to the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. The name derives from the Spanish fort which was built there in the XVIII century due to the strategic position at the entrance of the Bay. The fort was then converted into an American base, which was closed in 1995.

Gosh, it is really late, though! I would like to enjoy the twilight over the sea, and I do not have enough time to dedicate to this area. I just take a couple of photos, then. By the way, the picture of the flag with no wind is emblematic of the substantial failure of this stage 🙂

It is better to postpone the visit to this area, then, in order to be able to fully enjoy the park and the buildings.

Now it is time to go to Marina, which is the district next to Presidio on the inner side of the Bay.

Here I absolutely have to give a look at the Palace of Fine Arts, which was built for the 2015 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The aim of this exposition was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal (which had taken place the year before), but it ended up with celebrating the “rebirth” of San Francisco after the terrible earthquake and fire of 1906.

  

As you can notice, the photos have two very different lights. After all, I could not miss the twilight over the Golden Gate from Marina…

So, it was a very quick stroll and, as always, I was quite pressed for time… but I think it was really worth it!