SAN FRANCISCO

For me it is the most beautiful American city, it certainly does not have the wealth and museums of New York, nor the vastness of Los Angeles, nor the beaches of Miami, but it has a bit of all this in addition to its other particular beauties such as the bay which is somewhat reminiscent of that of Rio de Janiero, but here it is crossed by the famous Golden Gate bridge which leads to Sausalito, a delightful town of artists and suitable for rest and relaxation. In the bay there is the famous Alcatraz island which for a long time hosted a famous prison immortalized by a Hollywood film "Escape from Alcatraz" starring Clint Eastwood, today the island has become a tourist destination and you can also sleep for a fee in the its cells. San Francisco has many hills and there are characteristic streets that go up and down (the most famous is Lombard Street among flower beds) between beautiful wooden houses, each with a different structure. There is the tram or cable car which is another icon of the city and the Fisherman wharf, once a fishing port, now transformed into an area of ​​restaurants, cafes and shops where a visit to Pier 39 is recommended. Not far away you can see lions marines sunbathing on the rocks and Ghirardelli Square whose name derives from the former chocolate factory transformed into a shopping centre. The tram is free if you do not enter and remain attached to the running board, furthermore at the end of the ride there are technicians who turn the vehicle by hand on a wooden platform and reposition it for the return climb in the opposite direction. There is the elegant area of ​​North Beach once inhabited by Italians, now swallowed up by the Chinese whose neighborhood is entered through the dragon's gate, like Little Italy in NY, it was very famous in the 1950s and frequented by the beat generation. There is the Citylights bookshop of the publisher Ferlinghetti who also published the book of poems "l'urlo" by the gay poet, there are restaurants and cafés like the café Trieste, that is my city, evidently opened by a man from Trieste, and nearby there is also a very beautiful skyscraper, the Transamerica Pyiramid with a pyramid shape as the name suggests. Then don't miss Union Square with its elegant shops and boutiques, its best restaurants and many theaters where you can enjoy every type of show from ballet, to opera, to symphony concerts as well as classic and avant-garde theatrical comedies and tragedies . San Francisco also hosts good museums such as the one of modern art, the Young Museum, the Exploratorium and the Academy of Science of Renzo Piano, our famous Genoese architect, a research institute and one of the most famous natural history museums in the USA. Finally, the gem of San Francisco represented by Golden Gate Park, the largest city park in the USA and the third most visited after Central Park in NY and Lincoln Park in Chicago. Inside there are 10 km of cycle paths and 20 km of horse trails, golf courses and all other sports such as baseball, softball, tennis and football. It has a million trees, a beautiful greenhouse and a beach with rough seas where you can surf. There are also bison. Not far away is the famous Berkeley University which started the '68 movement and which I visited under the guidance of a nice student of American origin who showed me around the campus and even climbed a kitsch copy of the bell tower of San Marco in Venice. It is located north of San Francisco not far from the other large city of Portland which, added to San Francisco, forms a metropolis of considerable population and size. Go and visit San Francisco!