EVEN WHEN YOU LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO the Golden Gate Bridge never gets old. It’s one of the first places Miss Jo likes to bring visitors, who without fail are electrified by its sight.
There are many ways to see the bridge, which Miss Jo likes to call International Orange, its official color. Her favorite spot for I.O. gazing: the seawall outside the Warming Hut (tasty soups) on the San Francisco side, near the Crissy Field salt marsh preserve and nature center.
Opened in 1937 with a pioneering suspension design, the bridge connects San Francisco— located at the tip of a peninsula– to Marin County to the north. In Marin and beyond there are pristine shores and redwood forests, as well as vineyards and farms that help feed the Bay Area’s obsession with fresh, locally grown food.
Previously, you had to go by ferry to cross the treacherous Golden Gate strait where the San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean— or go the long way around by land for a 120-mile trip. (San Francisco’s other span, the Bay Bridge, created another quick connection from Oakland, when the span opened six months before the GG Bridge.)
The City’s small size at 49 square miles and its relative isolation without bridges for almost a century, helped to create a close-knit community of distinct, side-by-side neighborhoods. And thanks to no-chain-store zoning, several of these neighborhoods— like Glen Park where Miss Jo lives— have only indie boutiques, restaurants, cafes, hardware stores and other small businesses.
Photo by Miss Jo, of her Dutch friend Freya getting close with International Orange.
One Comment
Sweet! We miss San Francisco so much, and reading your blog helps recapture all the happiness we found there — like walking the bridge and drinking in that famous skyline and that impossibly blue Pacific.