A Visitor's Guide to Spending a Perfect Day in San Francisco

I've always wanted to visit San Francisco. I almost did once about 7 years ago, and then I almost did again about 2 years ago. This summer, I finally made the trip, as sort of the halfway point in a 6-week cross-country road trip I took with my boyfriend in his Mini Cooper S. After so many years of anticipation, I was worried San Francisco wouldn't meet my astronomical expectations.

Luckily, I was wrong.

So what's the big deal about San Francisco? Well, put simply, it's a beautiful, unique city. First, the hills alone are worth seeing if you're from a more traditionally flat city, like my hometown of Philadelphia. How people get used to parking on those hills is beyond me.

Second, the weather is totally crazy. If you think you're heading for non-stop sun and beach-friendly temperatures, think again. The mornings are foggy, and the high temperatures even on sunny summer afternoons often top out around 70 degrees. It's not out of the ordinary to encounter highs in the upper 50s in the middle of July, so if you're like me and you don't anticipate that when packing, you'll have to pick up some jeans while you're there. Luckily, GAP and Levi's were both born in San Fran, the shopping around Union Square makes finding new clothes easy, and there's no shortage of $5 hooded "SF" sweatshirts for sale at various shops along Fisherman's Wharf.

Third, there's something for everyone there. From Alcatraz to a Giants game at AT&T Park, from riding a cable car past Lombard Street to driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, and from Coit Tower to the plethora of museums all over the city, there's enough to do in San Francisco to keep any visitor occupied for well over a week.

In this hub, I've collected some favorite spots from my recent visit (which spanned 4 days in the middle of our road trip extravaganza) to offer suggestions for anyone looking to spend at least a day visiting San Francisco. The list is by no means exhaustive, but should provide a helpful starting point to anyone planning a visit to the city by the bay.

Like any other major city, San Francisco has oodles of hotels, hostels, motels, inns, bed & breakfasts . . . you get the idea. And like any other city, the accommodations come in all shapes, sizes, and prices. I'm going to suggest two spots -- one B&B, and one small boutique hotel -- that I enjoyed on my recent visit. For other options, click here.

The Washington Square Inn is an awesome little B&B located right on the northwest corner of Washington Square Park, in the North Beach section of San Francisco. You can step outside and see the park, a beautiful church (where Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe!), and Coit Tower. There are dozens of great Italian restaurants in the neighborhood, some of which are mentioned below, and Chinatown is just a couple blocks away. Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street and Ghirardelli Square are within walking distance, and there are bus and cable car stops nearby, providing easy access to the rest of the city. In short, you can't beat the location.

The Inn itself is run by a husband and wife who are there everyday, personally serving breakfast each morning. There are 2 floors with a total of 15 unique guest rooms, each more cozy and charming than the last. A European style breakfast is served everyday, and you can have it in the dining room or delivered to your room for breakfast in bed. You can choose from an array of delicious, fresh, homemade foods -- pastries and amazing croissants, fruit salad, yogurt, cereal or oatmeal, fresh-squeezed juices, and hot drinks (tea, coffee, or hot chocolate). Every evening at 5, wine and snacks are served in the dining room, providing another opportunity to meet the other guests and enjoy the homey atmosphere by the fireplace.

The rooms are smaller than a typical hotel room, but the beds are really comfortable, the furniture is lovely, there are robes in each room, and the bathrooms are clean and fully stocked with great smelling bath products. The rooms contain very informative travel books about San Francisco -- better than your average hotel room information binders.

The front desk staff is very friendly -- they knew my name after our first night there, and they quickly provided an ironing board & iron when we requested one. There's no parking on site, but there's a fair amount of street parking nearby, and the Inn has a partnership with a nearby parking garage ($25/day). Check-in is at 3 pm, and check-out is at 11 am. Room rates are between $179 and $329 (2nd floor rooms have better views and are more expensive). The link above takes you to the Inn's website, and the phone number is 1-800-388-0220.

When we decided to stay in San Francisco an extra day, we were devastated to learn that all of the rooms at the Washington Square Inn were booked for our extra night. Luckily, some people we met at the wine & snacks hour at the Inn were native San Francisco-ans, and they recommended the nearby Hotel Boheme. Only a few blocks away from the Inn, Hotel Boheme shares the same great location benefits and kept us in the neighborhood where our car was parked. We snagged a room there at the last minute, and we quickly fell in love with the place.

The front door of Hotel Boheme is opened with keys (real keys!), and it takes you up a carpeted staircase to the hotel's front desk (the first floor is occupied by a bakery, so the hotel starts on the 2nd floor). The 2 front desk guys are some of the nicest people we met on our trip. Stan (the night guy) hosts an informal sherry tasting every evening at a small table near the front desk. Stan is also a virtual fountain of local food information -- he used to participate in a Tuesday lunch club, so he's eaten almost everywhere in the City and he's not afraid to tell you where to eat.

The hotel's decor is a tribute to beat poets and artists that inhabited the North Beach area in the 1950s. Our bathroom had a signed picture of Allen Ginsberg in it. The lights over the entry staircase were coated with newspaper headlines from the fifties. The hallway to our room was covered with black and white photographs of artists and musicians taken in North Beach. It was a unique and beautiful atmosphere that stands out in my mind now as I think back over all of the different places we stayed during our 41-night journey.

Like the Inn, there is public street and garage parking nearby. There are 3 types of rooms (the variation is basically due to size), ranging from $174-$194/night. Check-in is at 2 pm, although we showed up closer to noon and they welcomed us without missing a beat. Check-out is at noon. For more information, click on the link above, send an email to info@hotelboheme.com, or call 415-433-9111.

When you wake up in San Francisco, 9 times out of 10 you're greeted by heavy fog.  Normally, I'd advocate staying in bed until the fog lifts (especially if you're at the Washington Square Inn, where you can enjoy breakfast in bed).  But to accomplish everything on the agenda for this perfect day, I'll have to urge you to get an early start.  Luckily, there are two great breakfast spots in the North Beach area that will make your wake-up more bearable.

From personal experience, I can tell you that the legendary status Stella Pastry & Cafe has among San Francisco locals is well-deserved.  Located on the first floor of the building that's home to the Hotel Boheme, Stella offers a delectable selection of authentic Italian pastries and sweets.  Stella opened in 1942, and is famous in San Francisco for a whole array of pastries and seasonal baked goods.  For breakfast, try one of the giant iced cinnamon buns.  And since it'll no doubt be chilly, regardless of the time of year, you'll want a hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.  It's served in a huge mug, and the whipped cream is amazing.  Coffee drinkers will find a selection of drinks geared toward their tastes too.  And if you can't resist the rest of the sweets (like I couldn't) you can take an assortment of cookies with you for the road.

Stella opens at 7:30 am everyday except Sunday, when they start serving an hour later.  There are only a handful of tables inside, but if you don't land a seat, you can stroll about a block north and eat in Washington Square Park (where on most mornings you'll be entertained by older Chinese men and women doing Tai Chi).  For more information, check out the link to the website above, or call 415-986-2914.

My second recommendation is not based on personal experience.  Mama's is one of the most popular breakfast spots in North Beach (and surrounding neighborhoods).  The reason I didn't get a chance to try it is the fact that every morning we were in San Francisco, the line at Mama's wrapped around the corner by the time we got there.  So learn from my mistakes, and get there early.  Mama's is right on the corner of Washington Square Park (by the Inn), and it's open everyday but Monday from 8 am until 3 pm.

After breakfast, catch the bus and head to Golden Gate Park.  (Ask for a city map at your hotel.  Both of the above places had them at the front desk, and the maps include bus routes.  There are also maps at most bus stops.  Bus fare is $2, and you get a transfer slip that's good for 4 hours, so if you time it right, you can get your return trip for free.)  When you get to Golden Gate Park, head towards the center, where the California Academy of Sciences and the deYoung Museum are located.

The California Academy of Sciences is a new museum, and it's hands down the best science museum I've ever visited.  It's open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 am until 5 pm, and on Sundays from 11 am until 5 pm.  General admission tickets are $29.95 for adults, $24.95 for students, seniors and youth 12-17 years old, and $19.95 for kids ages 4-11 (free for kids 3 and under).  The museum is also an operating scientific research institute and education center -- when exploring the displays, there are places where you can look through windows to see scientists at work.  It's an amazing environment with something for visitors of all ages.

The price of admission gets you into all of the museum's displays, which include a planetarium, an aquarium, a natural history display, a raptors exhibit, a rainforest exhibit, and other changing displays.  If you want to get a seat in the planetarium, get there early -- we arrived at 2 pm on a weekday and all of the shows were already full.  On the ground floor, we saw a display of "extreme" mammals (the largest, the smallest, the heaviest, etc.) and a really informative section about climate change.

We then entered the rainforest display.  This display is a real, live rainforest, full of real, live plants, birds, and butterflies.  You tour it by following a walkway that spirals upward around the edge of the circular space, moving from the lowest section of the forest to the tops of the trees.  Along the way, you learn about the types of vegetation and wildlife that inhabits the various rainforests of the world.  Birds and butterflies roam freely in the air above you (and sometimes right next to you), and more dangerous specimens can be viewed in terrariums lining sections of the walkway.  When touring the rainforest, you'll see huge spiders, colorful and poisonous tree frogs, all sorts of lizards, a disgustingly large cockroach, and all sorts of other creepy, crawly things.

When you get to the top, you're basically surrounded by butterflies and colorful birds, which land all around you and seem to pose calmly for photographs.  Before you get on the elevator to head back down and out of the display, a museum worker will check your head and back to be sure you're not hosting a hitch-hiking butterfly.  It's absolutely beautiful.

After the rainforest, we checked out the aquarium, which was much larger than we anticipated.  It's home to huge sharks, tiny neon tetras, and everything in between.  There's a section of glow-in-the-dark, deep water fish.  There's a section of weird looking seahorses that look like leaves.  There's an area where you can touch starfish.  Again, something for everyone.

At the end of our visit, we headed up to the roof.  The museum has a 2.5 acre Living Roof, which is covered with a variety of species of plants native to California (including poison oak!).  It absorbs most of the precipitation that hits it and helps to naturally regulate the temperature inside the museum.  It's also a cool shape, with sloping hills (one of which is the dome that tops off the rainforest display) that are a tribute to California's hilly terrain.

Golden Gate Park has tons of other great things to do -- the deYoung Museum for art lovers, a carousel and several playgrounds for kids, a flower conservatory, some Dutch windmills, the famous Japanese Tea Garden, and a buffalo paddock.  The park is huge and you could spend more than a day exploring it.  But if you want to follow this itinerary, you'll have to pencil in a return trip to see the rest.

After you're done at the museum, head to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch. Locals will pooh-pooh this advice, insisting that you can't find good food at Fisherman's Wharf. But from one wide-eyed tourist to another, I recommend ignoring the nay-sayers. First, you can't go to San Francisco without seeing the sea lions at Pier 39. You just have to do it, so you might as well get a meal in while you're there. Second, eating outside along Fisherman's Wharf, overlooking the bay, with views of Alcatraz and the bridges, is just plain fun. Plus, there's great people watching to be had.

And finally, but most importantly, in my opinion you can get good food at Fisherman's Wharf. Where? Check out Boudin Bakery, which has a location right at Pier 39. Don't bother looking at the menu. Get clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, to go. Eat it on a bench by the bay. You won't regret it. The clam chowder is good, but the reason to follow my advice on this one is the sourdough bread. Boudin Bakery has been making sourdough bread since 1849, so they kind of know what they're doing. At their larger locations, you can buy souvenir loaves of sourdough shaped like anything from a teddybear to a crab. The bread is delicious, and the perfect vessel for chowder on a windy San Francisco day.

If your'e not interested in chowder, or if you want dessert when you're done, head east along the Embarcadero to Ghirardelli Square. There's a cafe there with other food (or so I'm told), but the reason to go there is to get the best hot fudge sundae of your life. It's about $8, but it's so worth it. You can enjoy it at the Maritime National Historical Park, which offers plenty of green space and a beach. And bags full of Ghirardelli Squares in an assortment of flavors make a great gift for friends and family at home.

If you have the energy to walk after finishing your bread bowl full of chowder and your massive hot fudge sundae, head south (which, in this case, is uphill) toward Lombard & Hyde Streets. That's the top of the self-proclaimed "crookedest street in the world." Lombard Street, between Hyde and Leavenworth, has got to be one of the most famous blocks in any city in the world. I drove down it at 9 a.m. in the middle of the week, and there were flocks of tourists with cameras around their necks at the top, bottom, and lining both sides of it.

Driving down the zigs and the zags (speed limit = 5 mph) is a hoot, and walking up the block is a work-out. From the top looking down, you get a great view of Coit Tower, at the top of the next hill to the west. The houses along Lombard Street are lovely -- one bright blue one was overflowing with vivid purple bougainvillea this summer. The landscaping between the zigs and zags of the street is impeccable. It's a must-see tourist stop for a reason, so you absolutely must see it during your perfect day. Plus, the walk will burn some of the crazy calories you consumed at lunch!

After taking plenty of pictures of Lombard Street, walk directly down it toward Coit Tower. The walk will take you directly to the foot of Telegraph Hill, home of the famous-yet-elusive flock of parrots.  At the top of Telegraph Hill, you get a great view of the bay.  The hill gets its name from a structure built in 1849 that's no longer there -- a windmill-like thing with 2 arms that were used to signal to the rest of the city the types of ships that entered the Golden Gate.  The signaling system became obsolete when the electrical telegraph was invented.

Now the hill is home to Coit Tower, which provides the best panoramic view of San Francisco you'll find anywhere in the city (assuming you manage to plan your visit for a fog-free afternoon).  Coit Tower was built in 1933, after Lillie Hitchcock Coit died and designated a chunk of her estate to be used to enhance the beauty of San Francisco.  The result is a striking circular tower offering a 365 degree view of the city.

Admission is about $5, and the tower is open daily from 10 am until 5 pm.  Inside the first floor, the walls of the tower are covered with a unique set of murals depicting significant moments in San Francisco's history.  Viewing the murals is free -- the admission fee is only necessary if you plan to ride to the top of the tower, which you do if you intend to keep following this itinerary.  Tickets are sold in a cheap little gift shop at the center of the first floor -- you'll also find a decent selection of magnets and other touristy stuff there.

But the whole point of visiting Coit Tower is to ride to the top.  The elevators are operated by workers who give you a 2-minute history of the tower on your way up -- a fun feature.  From the top, you can see everything.  And I mean everything.  The Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, Washington Square Park, the Transamerica Buildings (and the other less pointy skyscrapers that compose the skyline of the city's financial district), and the list goes on.  It's breathtaking, to say the least, and you'll want to have a full roll of film with you (if you're someone who still uses film).

If you're lucky (luckier than I was), you'll get to see -- or at least hear -- the wild parrots that inhabit Telegraph Hill.  That's about all I can say about the parrots, since they were apparently on vacation when I was there.

By this time, you should be working up a hunger again despite the fact that you ate an entire loaf of amazing bread for lunch and a gigantic cup of ice cream smothered in hot fudge for lunch. So head back toward Washington Square (all downhill -- phew!) and consider the following two dinner options.

If you're feeling adventurous, and/or if you're a fan of cooking-related reality TV, try Iluna Basque. Located at the southeast corner of the park, this little Basque restaurant is owned by Mattin Noblia, who was a contestant on Season 6 of Top Chef (Las Vegas).  You might remember him as the guy with the red neckerchief.  Anyway, Basque food is a cross between French and Spanish cuisine, and Noblia's restaurant offers both tapas (small plates) and entrees (large plates).

When we had dinner at Iluna Basque, Noblia was there, with his hand in all aspects of the restaurant's operation -- from cooking in the kitchen to lighting candles on the tables.  The atmosphere is romantic -- dark and intimate.  The waiters are incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about the menu.  Some of our favorite dishes were the sauteed scallops over ratatouille, plums wrapped in bacon, poached pears in red wine with warm brie, and mini lamb burgers.  The wine selection was good, and the bar offered happy hour specials from 5:30 until 7 pm.

Iluna Basque is only open for dinner -- Sunday through Thursday from 5:30 until 10:30 pm, and Friday/Saturday from 5:30 until 11:30 pm.  We had reservations (via OpenTable), but they didn't seem necessary on a week night.  For more information, check out the link to the website above, or call 415-402-0011.

If you're looking for something more familiar and enjoy great Italian food, consider Piazza Pellegrini, located along the east side of Washington Square Park.  We liked it so much, we ate there twice.  They offer outdoor seating (with heaters on cool nights), and the indoor dining room is cozy as well.  The waiters are real live Italians, complete with charming accents, and they know how to help you navigate the menu.  We loved everything we had there, including the bruschetta (both traditional tomato, and a tasty mushroom/cheese combination), the crab and lobster ravioli, the homemade gnocchi, and the tiramisu.  The wine list was also fantastic.

Again, you can make reservations on OpenTable, or by calling 415-397-7355.  Piazza Pellegrini serves Sunday brunch (9 am -3 pm), daily lunch (11 am - 4 pm), and dinner (4 pm -10 pm Sunday through Wednesday, and 4 pm - 11 pm Thursday through Saturday).  They fill up for dinner, so unless you want to sit outside, make reservations.  Buon appetito!

There are obviously about a million more things to do in San Francisco.  In fact, I'll be returning someday soon to do the things I didn't get a chance to do this time -- most importantly, Alcatraz (as it turns out, calling 5 days ahead for reservations is not enough advance notice in July, so be sure to plan ahead!).  The food, the hills, the bridges, the cable cars -- if you're not careful, you really will leave your heart there!