I have lived in California for most of my life and have explored San Francisco at least a hundred times. However, for years (before I got married) I only explored Pier 39.
Boy, was I missing out!
San Francisco has so much to offer. In this post we share five places you’ll want to visit in San Francisco and four of the places we have never been to before.
One benefit to San Francisco is that you can park in one place and walk to your destinations and that is exactly what we did. We walked to Japanese Tea Garden, Conservatory of Flowers, and De Yong Museum Tower. We walked 3 miles and we didn’t even notice.
Japanese Tea Garden
This is the oldest Japanese garden in the United States. The Japanese Tea Garden was built for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 which was made possible by De Young.
The Exposition had a huge affect on this part of San Francisco which can still be seen today.
The garden was built with the purpose of being a relaxing place and is designed to slow you down through use of stones, water, and a drum bridge.
There is also what is known as the Tea House and here you can find tea and a selection of Japanese desserts. My daughters had Green Tea Cheesecake, while my husband had edamame, and Peter had Dorayaki. Of the 6 different flavors of tea I picked matcha. It was a way to experience the tea garden. I mean what is a tea garden without some tea?
Located at 75 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. San Francisco, CA 94118.
Conservatory of Flowers
Golden Gate Park’s oldest building is the Conservatory of Flowers. It was built in 1879 and is the oldest building of it’s kind in America. This green house is stunning to look at from the outside because there is so much beautiful detail and white color which makes the building stand out.
Today you can find more than 1,700 different species of plants here.There are four collections of plants here and each has their own room. There is the lowland tropics, aquatic plants, potted plants, and highland tropics room.
This place is pretty humid. You might not want to straighten your hair before you come here.
The aquatic plants were probably our favorite. They have the largest lilies in the world here known as the Victoria amazonica. The leaves outstretch six feet in diameter.
You’ll find many enjoying a picnic outside.
Admission price is great. It costs $9 for an adult, $4 for youth, and $3 for children. Children under 4 years of age get in for free.
Located at 100 John F Kennedy Dr. San Francisco, CA 94118.
De Young Museum Tower
This is a place where you can took at San Francisco from above. This tower allows you to look out glass in every direction. Letting you view the busyness of San Francisco from a less busy area. You can get in here without paying admission to the museum.
Located at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. San Francisco, CA 94118.
Fort Point National Historic Site
Fort Point was built before the American Civil War. It was built in 1853 for the purpose of protecting San Francisco from the British and Russians. Today you can still see some canons here and best of all you can admire the architecture. It is a very thick brick building which clearly looks like it was built for defense. You can look at the surrounding views of San Francisco on the roof.
The Fort is located underneath Golden Gate Bridge. It gets pretty windy here.
The Fort is self guided and admission is free.
Located at Long Ave & Marine Dr. San Francisco, CA 94129.
Picnic at Presidio of San Francisco
Presidio always has parking and is one of the less busy places in San Francisco. Here families come to kick a ball or have a picnic just like what we did. We first stopped by at Moscow and Tbilisi Bakery Store and picked up our lunch. Everything here is homemade. They have so many options. You can get a variety of piroshky as well as desserts. It is hard to make up your mind because everything looks delicious.
The bakery store is located at 5540 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94121.
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