San Francisco (U.S.)

 

Even people who hate the USA love San Francisco. It has an atmosphere of genteel （彬彬有礼的;有教养的）chic（高尚、别致） mixed with offbeat（不跟随时尚主流的;非传统的;特异的）innovation, and a selfeffacing（自我谦逊的）quality so blatantly missing from New York and LA.
One of the USA's most attractive cities, San Francisco's hilly streets provide some gorgeous glimpses of the San Francisco Bay and its famous bridges. This is a mosaic（马赛克式的东西）of a city, a big picture made from the colorful tiles of bustling Chinatown, gay Castro （旧金山一著名同性恋社区）and faux-hemian（法语词，故意表现得质朴童稚的）North Beach.

San Francisco covers the tip of a 30mi (50km) peninsula (半岛) in Northern California, with the Pacific Ocean on its western side and the San Francisco Bay to the north and east. San Francisco is just one of many cities in the Bay Area; others include Oakland (east across the Bay Bridge), Berkeley (just north of Oakland) and San Jose (an hour's drive southeast of San Francisco, near the southern tip of the bay). Marin County and the Wine Country lie to the north, across the Golden Gate Bridge.

The most touristed part of the city resembles a slice of pie, with Van Ness Ave and Market St making the two sides and the Embarcadero the round edge of the pie. The steaming toppings of this homebaked slice are the classy shops around Union Square, the highrise Financial District, the classy Civic Center, the down-and-out but up-and-coming Tenderloin, swanky（华丽的） Nob Hill and Russian Hill, Chinatown, North Beach and the epicenter of tourist kitsch, Fisherman's Wharf（渔人码头）. To the south of Market St lies SoMa, an upwardly mobile warehouse zone of clubs and bars that fades in the southwest into the Mission - the city's Latino quarter - and then the Castro, the center of gay life.

Making a circuit of the 49-Mile Drive is a good way to check out almost all of the city's highlights（最有意思或精彩的部分）. The route is well posted with instantly recognizable seagull signs, but a map and an alert navigator are essential. Do yourself a favor and allow a whole day to complete the circuit.

Greyhound is the only regular long-distance bus company operating to the city - all bus services arrive and depart at the Transbay Terminal in SoMa. Amtrak's rail network connects the Bay Area with the rest of the continental US and Canada. Its main stations are in Oakland and Emeryville, both in the East Bay. Caltrain links San Francisco with the peninsula and San Jose; its depot is in SoMa.