Golden Gate to the US

San Francisco offers travellers two built-in advantages. It's one of the most scenic cities in the world, and one of the most compact

San Francisco is situated on a 46.6 square-mile peninsula bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by the Golden Gate strait and from north to east by San Francisco Bay. The last provides it with one of the world's finest land-locked harbours. The Bay is spanned by two landmarks, the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges, and graced by four islands – Alcatraz, Angel, Yerba Buena and Treasure.

There are some 5.8 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area. The hub of a nine-county complex and the financial and insurance capital of the west, The city has a resident population of about 740,000.

San Francisco is built on a series of hills – more than 40. Consequently, almost every other street points the way to a panoramic view of the Bay. The principal hills, which early earned it the Roman sobriquet of 'City of Seven Hills', are Nob, Russian, Telegraph, Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson, Rincon and Lone Mountain.

The city is celebrated for its vitality and refreshing individualism. Its climate is no exception. Temperatures rarely rise above 75 degrees Fahrenheit or drop below 45. Great, cleansing drafts from the Pacific wash the city in all seasons, giving it an aura of perpetual spring. When much of the rest of the nation is sweltering in summer heat, San Francisco's natural air conditioning make the city a welcome respite.

Sightseeing musts

Its principal attractions are the century-old cable cars, America's only mobile national historic landmark...Fisherman's Wharf with its bayview restaurants and resident sea lions...Alcatraz, once the site of the US' toughest maximum security prison, now a national park...Chinatown, the largest Asian enclave outside of Asia...Golden Gate Park with its Japanese Tea Garden, Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium, outstanding museums and 1,000 wooded acres...Mission Dolores, founded by the Spanish padres in 1776...the pagoda-crowned Japan Center...the Victorian shopping sector known as Cow Hollow on outer Union Street...Ocean Beach and Seal Rocks...Union Square, home of major-league shopping...North Beach, the Little Italy of the west.

Bon appetit

A metropolis in every sense of the word, San Francisco is renowned for the quality of its restaurants -- more than 3,300 of them. The city has more restaurants per capita than any other in the US.

Arts plus sports

San Francisco supports an opera with a glittering tradition, a world-class symphony orchestra, a ballet that has won international acclaim, an annual International Film Festival, four public art museums and dozens of galleries, legitimate theatres presenting top offerings from New York and London and the local production circuit.

Sports fans can see it 'live' in the Bay Area – professional baseball (Giants, Oakland A's), football (49ers), basketball (Golden State Warriors), hockey (San Jose Sharks), tennis, collegiate contests, horse racing...the whole spectrum.

Ethnic diversity

The modern San Franciscan's appetite for cultural phenomena outside the American has fostered a demand for geographically-disorienting experiences – from heartstopping Spanish flamenco dance to moody French noir films; ancient Mesopotamian cuisine to utterly proper English high tea. The city's innate cosmopolitanism is evident everywhere – in its culinary arts, its neighbourhoods and street names, its cultural fabric, and especially in the ethnic pageantry which highlights its annual events schedule.

Tours unlimited

San Francisco's visitors have access to a wide range of sightseeing services, including bus tours of The city and surrounding attractions, boat tours, museum tours, night club tours, personalised tours, self-guided tours, walking tours and fishing excursions.