Long after your honeymoon in
San Francisco,
you’ll find yourself wondering: “What is it that
makes that city so romantic?”
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Maybe it’s the
fog, you’ll think. You remember the way it sometimes appeared from nowhere
on a bright and sunny day, creeping beneath the Golden Gate Bridge to move
slowly across the bay in a narrow stream. Except for that tunnel of fog
the world was bright and sunny, people walking beside the water in
t-shirts, eating crab cocktails on the wharf. And all the while the fog’s
stately progression touched the hills, briefly hovered, and then, just
like that, evaporated. It was always a little hard to believe it had
happened.
Could it be the
cuisine, you wonder? On your honeymoon, San Franciscans were always
telling you that they lived in the best restaurant city in the entire
world: “cutting edge,” they’d say. Once you were home it was easy to laugh
at such pretension. The food was incredible, though, you have
to admit. Going out every night to places like The Slanted Door, Boulevard, Gary
Danko... And it was always the meal of a lifetime. Each time.
Every night.
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Then there was
the late-night music. That place on the wharf where a famous sax man
brought down the house when playing two horns simultaneously. A couple
of flute players practically blowing the windows out. And that older
fellow, the singer, the one who wails out “Route 66” like it’s the path to
heaven. Then later you walked out to the end of a wharf, stand in the
chilly air looking out at the ships going by and the lights on the Bay
Bridge. You turned around and there was Coit Tower high above, a soft
green light rimming its top.
Maybe it was
the symphony, the opera, the ballet—best
you've ever seen. Theater, too; the week you were there more than 50
different plays and cabaret shows were staged in a single week. Chamber
music. Choral groups. Dance. Headliner concerts. Night clubs. Museums.
Galleries.
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And then there’s
that magical unpredictability of the weather. You wake up one morning and
look out your Nob Hill hotel room: you can see clear across the bay, all
the way to Berkeley in one direction, way past the Golden Gate in the
other. Then the next morning it’s all white mist outside, fog so thick you
can barely make out the cable cars on the street below.
And those
sudden, startling views! You can never forget the time you both went on a
run from the yacht harbor, moving easily beside the water all the way out
to that old brick fort beneath the Bridge. You paused a moment and then
turned around, heading back, and there it was: that white city spilling
down the hills and shining in the morning sun.
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Even the
touristy things seemed romantic. Holding on to a cable car. A drink at the
Top of the Mark. The world’s crookedest street. The murals in Coit Tower.
Walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. Riding a ferry. Brunching under the
stained-glass dome at the Palace. Cappuccino in North Beach. Dim Sum in
Chinatown.
Then much too
quickly you were
sitting on the runway, waiting for the flight home to get takeoff
clearance. The plane ascended, banked north, and for just a moment the
city was spread out below. It was dusk. The lights had come on, twinkling
like ten thousand tiny diamonds. The Golden Gate Bridge arched toward
Marin County, and beyond, hovering above the sea, was the fog. It sat
there, stretching east and west as far as you could see, waiting for some
magic signal to start its journey into the city.
You leaned back
with a sigh. “It must be the
fog,” your new spouse said, as if reading your thoughts. “It’s the fog
that makes this place so special, don’t you think?”
You laughed. "I don't know," you said,
"but I think we should come back really soon and try to figure it out,
don't you?"
More Info:
San Francisco CVB
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