San Francisco is contradictory. None of our European senses will work here. It is one of the rare places where nothing makes sense. Its timeless aspect comes not only from its geographic placement but also its visual universe. People still come here from all over the world looking for tolerance and freedom of expression. Whatever  the colour, race, religion or sexual preference, it is unconditionally accepted. Habitants are kind and help the newcomers whatever their dreams and desires might be. It is certainly unusual for a European that most of the time strangers greet each other on the street when they pass. Although San Francisco functions as a metropolitan center, this largely spread out city is like a small spiritual village filled with energy and creativity.

But before we enter our favourite Prada store at Union Square, let's look first at how this Californian Babylon has started.

It dates back only 150 years, which is nothing on a historical timescale. During the time when slavery was still an issue in America, the gold rush pulled in practically all the nations of the world to San Francisco. They arrived bringing their cultures and recreated their homelands, district by district. The city doubled by the minute, luxurious palaces were erected until the morning of 18 April 1906, when everything was destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent fire burned down almost the entire city. (The danger of an earthquake today is still a serious issue). Although the damage was devastating, the city was rebuilt in very short time - the 20’s, 30’s saw many incredible buildings - and bridges were stretched across the Bay to the mainland.

The city’s architecture recalls nostalgic Victorian houses in London, however these houses are very far from their authentic brothers. They are built of wood and freshly painted in every possible colour. Contemporary architecture leaves few marks on the landscape. The cityscape undulates over more hills than Rome, with some streets so steep that we are not far from literally sliding off the pavement. The view, though is spectacular and worth the climb. The city’s visual cavalcade is toped with giant honnysuckle, exotic flowers, lavender bushes, magnolia, kiwi, cedar and palm trees. Every street has a different mood, every house has a different style. Wild squirrels jump over fences, buffalos roam in the park, and tropical birds scream from downtown trees ......... no no ... it is all true and we still have not had our first joint today.

In the 60’s, San Francisco was the home of flower-power and free-love, turning the whole world upside down. Then sweet flowers slowly dried out during the 90’s in the furious money-making “.com” era. The crash of “.com” changed this gentle city into a harsh and highly competitive business orientated society.

San Francisco is still the most free and refreshing city in the US, unlike many other cities where “big brother” succeeded with mass media manipulation and fear and where general information or culture is narrowly defined. Business and human interaction takes place strictly on internet. Love only exists on old vinyls and sex is more accessible than a hot brioche. There is serious drug abuse, crime, alcoholism and people in devastatingly degraded mental states.

San Francisco is not an exception, but it is greatly resistant to this turbulent life through its individualism, spirituality and kindness.

Undoubtedly it is business and money which bring people together but kindness comes deeply from their hearts. It’s a great advantage, unlike LA where fake smiles, fake suntans, pumped-up muscles and botoxed faces create the general feel. American “mass-culture” has never been more stereotypical, while San Francisco is lavishly blessed by nature, the ocean, unpolluted air and very gentle people.

The most unusual aspect of San Francisco is its weather. It is very versatile like the city, as the seasons are displaced. In winter the weather remains fresh with gorgeous sunshine. The summer  is cold with a north wind and although during the day it gets splendidly sunny, the evenings cool down when the fog arrives from the ocean. The effect is spectacular when the thick fog pours in at a very low height, invadeing the city, district by district. The closer we go to the ocean, the more foggy it’s going to be. Microclimates define the city, some parts stay bright, others are freezing. The real summer starts in Septermber and lasts until late November. It is, however, impossible to swim in the ocean as the water remains ice cold all year round.

San Francisco is built on the Bay and provides a home to over 750.000 people on a 12 km wide and almost a 100 km long area of land on the tip of a peninsula. The increased population has created endless new cities around the Bay. Across the Bay Bridge, is the famous university town of Berkeley, neighbouring Oakland which has the largest black population in the Bay area. North of San Francisco, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge is Sausoulito, the most expensive fishing village. Further north, the Napa and Sonoma Valleys nourish the world famous California wine region and a part from Coppola or T-vine cellars, hundreds of vineyards and luxury spa hotels make this area look like Tuscany. Going south from San Francisco there are several dozen cities touching one after the other, Palo Alto with Stanford University or Cupertino in Silicon Valley, which is our digital century’s most important spot, with Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Google, Yahoo and hundred of other companies’ headquarters.

Late August, in the desert of Nevada many thousands of people gather for a week at the Burning Man Festival. Not far from where Antonioni’s well-known film, Zabriskie Point, was filmed, they come to live wild and free with music, dance and weed. They build their temporary temples and burn them ritually at the end of the event.

C I T Y G U I D E

The “city”, as the habitants of San Francisco call it, is broken into many small cities and districts. An address is described only by the name of cross streets. The most shocking aspect for a visitor is that there are few people on the streets. People drive. Otherwise they use public transport. The metro line BART goes under the Bay and connects the East Bay (Richmond-Berkeley-Oakland area) to the city. There is also a mini-metro network called MUNI, which is not exclusively an underground service, but also includes bus, trolly, tram and cable car service. The famous cable cars of San Francisco was first put into service in 1873. During the day, under the road of Nob Hill, heavy chains pull the old fashion cars up the hill.   

Market is an everlasting diagonal street, cutting San Francisco at the middle, where wooden seated trams bought over from Italy during the 1910’s provide public transport. On the upper North side of Market is a very small area called the Financial District which reminds us of New York’s Manhattan with a handful of skyscrapers. The most significant building is the pyramid shaped TransAmerican building on Montgomery Street. The Ferry building at Embarcadero, has fine restaurants, food and wine shops. On Sundays there is a Farmer’s market held in front of the Ferry Building for locally grown organic food. Along the waterfront, Piers run west to Fisherman’s Warf where we could take the ferry to the famous prison island, Alcatraz.

San Francisco has a small French Quarter at Belden Place and at the level of Cafe de la Presse (Grant # Bush) it over looks China Town with endless restaurants, souvenir shops and millions of lampions.  



      

Neighborging Telegraph Hill, history starts in North Beach (which is neither North nor a beach), with “papa Gianni” (age 86) who opened Caffe Trieste in 1956 in the heart of Little Italy (Colombus # Vallejo). His expresso, and poetry and music events brought writers and artists together like Jack Kerrouac and Alan Ginsberg who gave birth to the beat and hippy movements in the 60’s.

Union square is the temple of fashion. This tiny square and its side street, Maiden Lane hold Macy’s, Tiffany’s, the Prada-Gucci crowd, and all the major French couture houses together. For the ultimate design and quality lover there is the Clift hotel (Geary # Taylor) which satisfies every demand, designed as an “organized chaos” interior by Philippe Starck, with extraordinary eclectic features, lush brown velvet and mahagony dining and monocromatic bar.

The most shocking aspect of the city’s urban structure is that one corner from luxurious Union square, there is the Tenderloin, a horrifyingly poor, homeless area with drug attics and cheap prostitutes.

Six-seven blocks further Market runs into fashionable districts such as Hayes Valley with endless interior decoration shops and trendy US and European designers like Nida (Hayes # Laguna) or Gimme shoes (Hayes # Gough). Further down, Lower Haight offers bars, underground style record shops and art galleries. Cafe du Soleil (Fillmore # Waller) is a must for authentic french “atmosphere”.

Nob Hill is the continuation of Union square but only with residential houses and luxury hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton or the famous opulentor Fairmont Hotel where the Charter of the United Nations was drafted. Nob Hill, Russian Hill provides sweet cottages, little shops, Ghirardelli chocolate and the most amazing zigzag street of San Francisco (Lombard # Leavenworth).

The Marina district is built entirely on sand where the slightest earthquake could make the whole district disappear. Fort Mason, built during the II World War, accomodates hundreds of military-residential barracks. Pacific Hights and Pesidio Hights, the most luxurious districts of San Francisco, both have the most spectacular views overlooking the Golden Gate bridge. In the wild forest below the bridge, just off Baker beach, (a real beach), there is George Lucas Films and SeaCliff, a tiny residential luxurious spot for Hollywood stars.

Haight & Ashbury directly takes us back to the 70’s. Incense-burning, acid-dropping, peace-and-love-vibing outlets, vintage fashion shop, crazy hairdressers, fine tattoo artists and neo-punks blend with young and colourfully dressed Ganesha lover kids lying on the streets and smoking weed.

Golden Gate Park, during 30 odd blocks runs to the ocean with lakes, palm trees, cedar trees and orchides, tennis courts, a Japanese Tea garden, the de Young museum, a Dutch windmill and wild buffullos.

JapanTown is like Tokyo with cherry-blosom trees and pagodas where not many people speak English. Off JapanTown, there is one of the most extraordinary church, the hyperbolic-paraboloid shaped Saint Mary’s Cathedral (Geary # Gough), built in 1970 by Pietro Belluschi and Pierre-Luigi Nervi. The Cathedral proposes concerts and organ play on every Sunday afternoon. On upper Fillmore, there is the most celebrated concert hall, The Fillmore (Geary # Fillmore) where once Billy Holiday and Duke Ellington performed.

Back on lower Market, Castro and Noe Valley give home to the youngest, craziest and most sexually liberated people. This is where nightlife never stops. Castro blends into the Mission which is entirely Latin, bars, burrito bars and restaurants touch each other. After a long night out Tartine (18th # Gurerrero) is a must for fresh coffee and home made cakes before going to Dolores park for a rest.

Above Castro is the residential Twin peaks, the highest hill, gives the perfect birds eye view to the city.

The upper South side of Market  is SoMa (SOuth-of-MArket) is a giant district and fairly new as it has been just recently bulldozed down and totally rebuilt to accommodate new businesses and also the temple of the contemporary art scene, SFMoMa, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Market # 3rd). It frequently brings artists like Kiki Smith, Chuck Close or Matthew Barney. Barney's last show, "Drawings Restraint", showed extraordinary large scale petroleum-jelly scultures, drawings, dynamic photographs with wife Bjork and videos related to his latest feature-lenght film on Japanese whale hunting.

There is also 49 Geary  with a dozen of contemporary art galleries such as the Catherine Clark gallery. The Weinstein gallery (off Union square)  has the richest collection of the last living figure of the surrealists, Enrico Donati. The Minna Gallery  (Minna # 2rd) not only presents young contemporary artists but it is also a funky bar and electro-jazz venue. The de Young museum is in the middle of the Golden Gate Park, reopened last October and for the di Rosa Preserve we would have to leave San Francisco to Napa Valley, for the largest collection of art from Bay Area artists in the world.

There is no adventure without good food. For french and italian “cuisine” San Francisco is a real paradise, mastered with Californian organic food and wine form Sanoma, Napa. There are hundreds of excellent restaurants like Tartine (Valencia # 17th), Zuni (Market # Gough), Josh Sens (Mission # 21st), Boulette’s Larder and Slanted Door (in the Ferry Building) or for vegan raw food Cafe Gratitude (Harrison # 20th) where the quality and the ambience is guaranteed. Dinner normally starts around 6pm and restaurants often close by 10pm-11pm. There is no smoking in any public place.

Coffee is big business in San Francisco. Chain stores like Strarbucks for fast-coffee are to be avoided as the city provides thousands of incredible small coffee houses. For home cooking, WholeFoods Market or Rainbow Grocery deliver high quality organic products. Giant US chain stores like Safeway however to be avoided as food is often treated with “grown hormones”.

Bjork and Matthew Barney at SFMOMA Museum of Modern Art San Francisco

Styles do not follow any European trends and our fashion senses are strangely not dictated by Paris but by the extreme variety of weather conditions. There are several microclimates in the city where hot and cold air, with the famous daily fog, play tricks on everyone and we can never leave home without carrying at least half of our wardrobe. City fashion is based on individual self-expression, mixed between “earthy” mother-nature and sandals, tribal and wild, colourful spiritual Ganesha, laid-back 70’s or “porno-chick” with oversized sunglasses and the punky 80’s styles. It is hard to find anyone without tattoos or piercings. Haircolours are very 80’s, boys and girls equally colourful. After Dior, the most  common fashion accessory is the “coffee-to-go”, the carrying your coffee in a paper cup whereever you go.

The music sceen in San Francisco is very eclectic, from deep-house through 80's pop to 70's nostalgic. The i-pod generation loves going to parties, loves dressing up or more likely dressing down, wearing the craziest combination of colours and clothes, and playing fearlessly with gender dressing. Girls often look like boys or wild "earthy creatures", and boys like tatooed rock stars or pop-icons, with other metrosexual variations. There is no such thing as being ridiculous, just having fun fun and fun. San Francisco is like a giant metropolis with lots of badly behaved kids.

The most popular bars and clubs : Ruby Skye (Geary # Mason), Lime (Market # Sachez), Minna (Minna # 2nd), DNA Lounge (Folsom # Harrison), Pink (16th # South of Van Ness), the Bar on Castro (Market # Castro) amongst many others.

During a direct flight, which takes just over 10 hours form Paris, London or Budapest, we have largely enough time to be pampered by air-service, get into the idea of the most surprising and promising adventure or chill out on the way back, slowly readapting to our well-behaved Metropolitan European manners ...

text and photos by ZOLTAN+ Paris  San Francisco

photos of Bjork and Matthew Barney by SFMOMA / photos of Clift Hotel by Purple PR London