36 hours in San Francisco: Where to eat, what to see, where to stay - yt video

Built on a gold rush, San Francisco has an outsize place in the popular imagination. A glittering city at the edge of the Pacific, this micro metropolis of 800,000 has always been a vanguard, a place where culture and industry happen first and growth happens furiously. In recent years, the city has taken a reputational hit for its post pandemic challenges. But San Francisco is as beautiful as ever, developing more enticing public parks and green spaces, creating entire neighbourhoods from whole cloth, and expanding arts institutions, including the new Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, which moved to a significantly larger space downtown in October.

FRIDAY

3.30pm | View the Golden Gate and hang at the arcade

Fisherman’s Wharf is San Francisco’s most unabashed tourist trap, but the area’s Pier 45 is worth a visit for the near-century-old Musee Mecanique (free admission, coin-operated machines), a collection of antique arcade games, amusement park artifacts and mechanical musical instruments. Then walk west toward the Golden Gate Bridge, popping into the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park Visitor Center on the ground floor of the swanky Argonaut Hotel. This free museum offers a surprisingly in-depth and nuanced history of the city’s working waterfront. Afterward, stroll to Aquatic Park, where swimmers brave the frigid San Francisco Bay and the park’s bathhouse, now the Maritime Museum (free). Take in its striking streamline moderne art deco exterior, even if you don’t make its 4pm closing time.