At the beginning of the 16th century, a Portuguese navigator first saw the actual San Francisco Bay. Then, following his path, in 1579 Elizabethan sailor and navigator Sir Francis Drake, landed there, in the middle of his journey around the world. In 1763, the Spanish Governor of South California, Gaspar de Portola, even though arrived first there, was not remembered as its founder. It had been the Spaniard Juan Manuel de Ayala, in 1775, to whom the real discovery of San Francisco was attributed to.

After the Spanish have installed a presidio in the Golden Gate in 1776, the Mexican Juniperro Serra, a franciscan priest, founded a mission he called San Francisco de Asis, together with other monks. The mission was built in the south of the military camp. Towards the west direction of this mission was born the village of Yerba Buena, today transformed into the Chinatown of San Francisco. Yerba Buena then grew into an important transit place for merchants, thanks to a port built in 1835.

In 1821, the territory fell under the rule of Mexico, but in 1845, the American navy leader Captain John B. Montgomery, on his warship called Portsmouth, to claim Yerba Buena as a part of the United States. The following year, Yerba Buena was rebaptized San Francisco.

When the Gold Fever started in California, in 1848, Yerba Buena only counted about 500 inhabitants living in its boundaries. The Gold Rush triggered the city's development, in 1870 it already counted about 150,000 citizens. The economic progress was very considerable, that the administration could not control the effects. San Francisco made a jump ahead with the opening of the first transcontinental railway line in 1869.

During the last quarter of the 19th century, big efforts were made, a way to build the unpractical wavy land of cliffs and to dry the marshy regions of the bay had to be found.

The Great San Francisco Earthquake on April 18, 1906, followed by three days of fire, slowed the development of the Pacific metropolis. About 28,000 houses of its principal business district and a big part of the Chinese district were destroyed, on more than 10 km2 of surface. The disaster killed more than 400 victims.

The reconstruction was almost done when the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was held in 1915, celebrating the Canal of Panama, recently opened. Starting from this year forward, San Francisco underwent a constant development progress. In 1930, the city was inhabited by 634,000 persons. Through the construction of two large bridges on the bay (Oakland Bay in 1936 and Golden Gate Bridge in 1937), the towns surrounding the San Francisco Bay became even closer.

Fisherman's Wharf
You have never been to San Francisco if you have never been to Fisherman's Wharf.

Hundreds of fishing boats selling seafood freshly taken from the sea. Try to dine in one of the excellent restaurants along the quay, and taste the delicious and original dishes : abalone steaks, Dungeness crabs and Sourdough bread, a sort of bread whose recipe was first created in the time of the Gold Rush.

Then we continue our visit to Alamo Square, in the Haight Ashbury district, an old Frisco hippie quarter where we can find the famous Victorian-styled houses with the financial district's skyscrapers in the background.

Stopping by at the Financial District, do not forget to observe the pyramidal architecture of the Transamerica Building, Frisco's highest skyscraper, towering the city with its 835 feet of height.

Ghirardelli Square
Just in the west of Fisherman's Wharf, we arrive at two beautifully renovated quarters : Ghirardelli Square and the Cannery. Buildings made from brick, once damaged, have been transformed into commercial patios filled with elegant boutiques, galleries and restaurants.

San Francisco Experience, the cinerama on top of Ghirardelli Square, will bring you to a historical journey, tracing back two centuries of Frisco's past.

Chinatown
San Francisco's Chinatown is located in the west of the Financial District. Home to the biggest Oriental population outside Asia, it is here that you can buy souvenirs, visit a cookie factory, or simply taste the exotic food.

With its columns and its adobe façade, Mission Dolores is one of the numerous Californian missions, established in 1791 by the Spanish franciscan monks, in order to enlighten the Indians and convert them into Christianity. Being the oldest building of San Francisco, Mission Dolores had its original decoration brought from Spain and Mexico.

Alcatraz Island
Telegraph Hill, with its Coit Tower honoring Frisco firemen, offers its visitor a panoramic view towards the bay and the city.

From there, you can see Alcatraz, the prison worldly renowned for its severity, no prisoners have ever escaped its walls. Prison folklore said that sharks live inside the waters around Alcatraz.

Alcatraz, "The Rock", so inhabitants of San Francisco call the jail, has starred in dozens of B-class movies, but also in some more prestigious ones.

Indeed it has never been the island's first inhabitants, the pelicans (alcatraces in Spanish), who inspired these movies, but the famous criminals held within its bars, such as Al Capone.

Since 2006, a new permanent exhibition of guided visits explain to Alcatraz's annual 1.4 million visitors the fact hidden behind the fiction : "Alcatraz, Escape from Reality". The exhibition was launched on November 6, 2006, the very day of the inauguration of the ancient fortress becoming federal prison, on November 6, 1937, only 69 years later.

Golden Gate Bridge
North Beach at night. Originally an Italian quarter, more than 100 nightclubs, cabarets, theaters and restaurants could be found here. You can also choose between rock and opera music.

Golden Gate Bridge offers a marvelous view towards the city, the bay and Alcatraz. A pavement lets you "walk on the Pacific Ocean", about half a mile above the Golden Gate Strait.

In the other side of the bridge, we arrive at Sausalito, a nice artist colony. Narrow streets, houses hooked on the cliffs, numerous boutiques and restaurants, a magnificen view towards San Francisco and its bay.

27 km northwest of the bridge lie the Muir Woods, where eternal giant sequoias grow peacefully. Some of these marvelous trees can reach up a height of 72 meters and a diamter of 6.3 meters.

Discover also : San Francisco through the lenses of Hollywood cameras
San Francisco is a somptuous theater of more than 1,000 movies.

The San Francisco Movie Tour, especially created for American movie fans, recently renewed their schedule and their package. Since November 2006, a tour entirely devoted to the American cinema, departs everyday on 10:30 AM on the feet of the bridge, Pier 43 1/2, in the heart of Fisherman's Wharf quarter. The 23 passengers of the San Francisco Movie Tour Bus will admire more than 60 shooting places risen into stardom thanks to Hollywood.

So you can visit to the very place where Kim Nowak plunged into the water, at the beginning of Vertigo, see Mrs. Doubtfire's house; ask the chauffeur to drive faster when you arrive at the streets where the famous car chases of Bullitt were once filmed, then stop by and admire the apartment shared by Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in the Dark Passage. Flat screens installed inside this luxurious moving cinema will allow you to remember even more the grand moments of cinema. Three-hour-set of Hollywood fairytales without being closed in a dark room.

A museum pays homage to the Beat Generation
A museum, tribute to the Beat Generation, has been opened at the end of 2006 on Grant Avenue, in North Beach.

Housing most of all the memorabilia once owned by Jack Kerouac, father and leader of the movement. As for the term "Beatnik" describing the Beat Generation groupies, it is to Herb Caen, famous writer of San Francisco Chronicle, that we owes the term he first used in 1956. These beatniks wandered around North Beach cafés and bookstores, among them are Café Vesuvio, Café Trieste and City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Avenue.

Not to miss in San Francisco :
Cable cars - Market Street - Civic Center - Mission Dolores - Twin Peaks - Union Square - Nob Hill - Japanese Cultural and Trade center - Chinatown - Montgomery Street - Jackson Square - Pacific Coast Stock Exchange - Embarcadero - Bay Bridge - Ferry Building - Telegraph Hill - Russian Hill- Fisherman's Wharf - The Cannery - Maritime Museum - Ghirardelli Square - Alcatraz Island - Palace of Fine Arts - Presidio - Golden Gate Bridge - Lincoln Park - Seal Rocks