I love San Francisco

I love San Francisco.  I have probably visted the city 100 times, may be more. I have been there for holiday, just for fun, for business, for seminars and for the combination of those reasons.  What is  about San Francisco?

I love its beauty
I love its architecture
I love the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge
I love the bay and the ocean that surrounds this pennisula
I love the restaurants
I love the vibrancy of the City
I love the different neighborhoods, the financial district, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and the others

One on of my favortite walks in the world is the walk down Columbus Avenue starting at the Pyramid building, ending at Fisherman's Wharf.  This walk takes you through North Beach and its many restaurants.  You walk past the famous City Lights Book Store and the St. Peter and Paul Church.  When you get to Lombard Street you can look to your left up the hill and in the distance see cars navigating the tight curves of the "crookest street in the world".

I like Union Square, with its hotels, fine shopping and watching normal, weird and unusal people sitting in, standing by or walking through the Square.

I like to make a last minute decision to jump on a cable car that has room for at least a couple of more passengers and ride a few stops even though I was not going that way.

I like to have an early evening drink at the Redwood Room Bar in the Cliff Hotel.

I like to have cocktails at the Top of The Mark in the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill.  I have watched the sunset from the Top of the Mark, sipping  a cocktail while the day turns into night and millions of lights come alive in the City. 

I like to walk down Maiden Lane meandering through the small shops. One of my favorite places for fettucini and scallops was the Ironhorse Restaurant on Maiden Lane.  In the, late 1970's and the early 1980's I ate there at least a dozen times.  Sadly, it closed it doors and now only exists as a warm memory in my mind.

I like to walk the Marina Green

I like to walk down Union Street poking my head into each shop.

I like to have lunch at the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel.

A few years ago, the Lovely Sharon and I walked acrossed the Golden Gate Bridge on a cool, sunny and windy day.  Holding hands, looking at the views and feeling in love.

As I write this I can hear in my mind Tony Bennett's classic:

The loveliness of Paris
Seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Rome
Is of another day
I've been terribly alone
And forgotten in Manhattan
I'm going home to my city by the bay.

I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me.
To be where little cable cars
Climb halfway to the stars!
The morning fog may chill the air
I don't care!
My love waits there in San Francisco
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
Your golden sun will shine for me!