Features

United States of America - California Dreamin'

by Mike Levy

As someone imbued with the early 20th century songbook, California is a Tin Pan Alley dream come true. You really can ‘Leave your heart in San Francisco’; indeed you do urge that Golden Gate to open up as you intone ‘California Here I Come’ and you really do want to know the way to San Jose. I could go on… I think I sang my way through the state and not without cause: California really is a melodious place.

We began in San Francisco. It is such a wonderful city that even the locals desist from trying to shorten its name. But you may need a packet of cough sweets to sing in San Francisco – especially in the morning when the cold sea mist comes rolling in (it often returns in late afternoon which makes the city an ideal destination for late-rising night owls who have hit the first bar they see in trendy Haight Ashbury well before the shadows hit any yardarm).

Despite its legendary steep hills (familiar to all fans of the movie Bullitt), the city is ideal for seeing on foot. Yet the local tourist office staff, near the Powell Street cable car turnaround, were a little knocked off script when I asked for a walking guide to the city.

Eschewing the glossy full-colour brochures promoting expensive day trips to Alcatraz prison island, open-top guided buses of the main sights, ‘romantic’ tours of the Golden Gate at night, the guys had to go scrambling in the back office for a photocopied selection of typed A4 sheets offering walking circuits of the town. These are ideal. The tours get you into the heart of a city with a very big heart (one you can leave your own in).

First off was a stroll around Chinatown at dusk. This is the perfect time: the customary mist shrouds the tops of the tall 21st century buildings (such as the oddly uninspiring pyramidal Transamerica edifice) turning this 19th century part of the city back to its origins as a low-rise warren of streets and a genuine taste of old China.

A new day and another walking tour as per the by now crumpled sheet. This one took me to the famous shoreline; beginning with a very windswept and down-at-heel pier. If you can avoid dodging the often out-of-control segue riders, the old fisherman’s pier is well worth fighting against the sea wind for. It offers nothing more than a grandstand view of the famous Golden Gate Bridge, a matchless vista of Alcatraz, shimmering out there in the bay, and a breathtaking vista of the city. Apart from wistful gazing, there is nothing to do or buy in this part of San Francisco and on a typically cold morning you may only have the odd seagull for company (those crazy scooterists only arrive after noon).

This is the unique thing about this big American city – it is so easy to be alone here. Not that you’d want to be alone for long and the walk then takes you back into the bustle of the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory (not quite as exciting as Willie Wonka’s).

We decided to take a detour and climb a very steep hill (you get used to them) to find down the other side, Fort Mason. This is an area of the city that few tourists seem to reach. Here are the remains of a former US Army base, the place where in WWII thousands of young men embarked for one-way journey to the South Pacific. Today the army is gone but in its place an eerily quiet, half forgotten margin of a great port. There are attempts to enliven the old fort; a rather splendid vegetarian restaurant gives one of the best views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We discovered a rather wonderful second-hand bookshop with an attached café selling Illy coffee (don’t believe the taunt that Americans don’t know how to make a good Americano – they do here). But despite the odd shop here and there, there is a doleful quality about Fort Mason which seems to suit this neglected corner of a great city by the sea.

Suitably refreshed, and armed with a couple of good second-hand books, we rejoined the walk which took us back to the tram stop. This is the end of the The Powell-Hyde line which runs over Nob and Russian hills – the steepest and scariest in the city. I was told by the guard to stand on the outside (to balance the car) and got a spectacular view of the hills as the car pulled its way to the peaks and then dropped down like a very sedate big dipper. It is a very exciting trip; one that makes you want to sing out loud. All together now…

In picture: A mist-topped Transamerica Pyramid, and a windswept pier: a view of San Francisco