1. San Francisco has very changeable weather and can be very cold and foggy even in summer, if you go out of town just 5 miles it can be 10 degrees warmer.
2. Alcatraz aka The Rock is the top tourist attraction in California and noone escaped alive. The island's name is derived from the Spanish word alcatraces, meaning "strange bird" - a reference to pelicans living on the island when it was visited by the Spanish.
3. The Tenderloin area is a bit dodgy, yes I discovered this first hand.
4. Basic Instinct, Mrs Doubtfire, Kindergarten Cop, The Towering Inferno, Vertigo, The Wedding Planner and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were filmed in San Francisco and I visited quite a few of the places where they filmed
5. Rent is pretty expensive downtown, you can expect to pay $800 per month to share and an average of $1500 for a one bedroom. There are lovely Victorian houses which get sold within a day, when we were there one was sold for 2 million with no yard or balcony.
6. The Painted Ladies are a row of picture postcard houses used in many films, the blue house was in Kindergarten Cop. There is a Shoe garden in the park opposite them which is quite bizarre.
7. Otis Redding wrote the song "Dock of the Bay" in Oakland by the docks in San Francisco.. "I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay"
8. The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world and was named after the waters opening of the San Francisco Bay called the Golden Gate in gold rush times. The bridge is painted International Orange and was thought to blend in well with the scenery.
9. The sea lions at Pier 39 were originally on another rock but moved because of an earthquake and decided to take residence on the docks, people loved to come and see them so instead of moving them they got rid of the boats and kept the sea lions ...yay!
10. The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually-operated cable car system. Someone has to operate the lever to grip and release the cable and a conductor who collect fares and controls the rear wheel brakes when going downhill.
11. The Coit Tower is said to resemble a fireman's hose due a myth about Lillie Hitchcock Coit's affinity with the San Francisco fire fighters, apparently she dressed up as a man so she could be a firefighter.
12. San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 14th most populous city in the United States, with a 2007 estimated population of 764,976 and including surrounding cities in the San Francisco Bay Area there are 7.2 million people.
13. There are lots of steep streets in San Francisco, the steeper ones will have cars parked sideways and steps going up the hill.
14. There is a Japantown, Chinatown and Little Italy. Castro is the gay area.
15. Haight & Ashbury was the center of the 1960s hippie movement. Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin all lived a short distance from the famous intersection.
16. Golden Gate Park consists of 1017 acres, it has eucalyptus and redwood trees. The "Pan handle" of Golden Gate Park has been a site for many concerts including those by Big Brother, The Grateful Dead, The Airplane and even Jimi Hendrix.
17. Gay Pride was on 30th June in San Francisco, Dykes on Bikes lead the pride parade and there was more of wedding theme celebration as same-sex marriage has only been legal in California since June 16.
18. Lombard Street is famous for having a steep, one-block section that consists of tight hairpin turns, the roadway has eight switchbacks and is said to be the crookedest street in world.
19. Nob Hill is home to many of the city's old money families and the big four, families associated in the building of the railroad, sometimes referred to as Snob Hill
20. The Financial District neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake & Fire (although miraculously, the area's skyscrapers survived). Because of the terrain and seismic activity the buildings to make it earthquake proof the buildings have ball-bearing sliding plates.
