Sightseeing in San Francisco

City Sightseeing San Francisco

The comfortable and for your service heated and air conditioned open top double-decker buses leaves every 30 minutes from 20 locations throughout San Francisco.

Starting point is at Fishermans Wharf, 99 Jefferson Street at corner of Mason Street.

Your HOP ON HOP OFF Sightseeing ticket is valid for unlimited rides for two days. You may HOP OFF at any point of your interest and continue whenever it suites you.

Golden Gate Bridge is included on our 1½ hour one-big-loop together with Down Town and many other sights like Fishermans Wharf including Pier 39 and Alcatraz and places like the Financial District, Ferry Building Terminal, San Francisco China Town, Coit Tower, American Pyramid and Golden Gate Park, Civic Centre including San Francisco Town Hall, The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco Opera and Symphony.

For your safety all buses are equipped with seat belts and all our safety requests to meet the strictly California laws.
In addition Open Top Sightseeing San Francisco operates the newest and most environmental friendly tour buses.

The brief San Francisco history

The Native Americans is dating back to 11BC. They were followed by the Mexican and Spanish settlers and quite a few explorers from Spain, England and Mexico. The missionaries had established mission communities, Mission Dolores being the first in 1776.

It was the Spanish who had named the bay St Francis after the Italian monk and saint, Francis of Assisi

The small town was named Yerba Buena – Spanish for good Herb – up until 1847 where it changed name to San Francisco.

Once San Francisco was a small harbour town with only 800 people but during the Gold Rush era this changed rapidly.

Farmer John Sutter predicted this when gold was found on his property in 1848 and he tried to keep it secret but as always there was a dynamic entrepreneur round the corner. In this case it was merchant Brannan who eyed the possibility of earning a fortune on selling supplies to oncoming gold diggers and so he did.

First he ran through the streets of San Francisco telling each and everyone about the gold followed by raising the price on his metal pans from twenty cents to fifteen dollars and in less than nine weeks he made thirty-six thousands dollars.

The cities too rapidly grew to housing 100,000 newcomers looking for gold or make an earning on the gold diggers.

Many Chinese sailors moved to this area during the Gold Rush and later when the transatlantic railroad was built and finished - mainly by Chinese workers - new settlers arrived to China Town.

Today’s San Francisco

From being a city of primarily Irish and Italians, San Francisco has become a very cosmopolitan city with a population of about 43% white, 30% Hispanic and 7% black. The balance falls under “others”. Like most large cities elsewhere in the world, the San Franciscans have settled in neighborhoods of their own kind and many different languages are spoken. You might meet people who don’t speak any English at all.

With the cultural diversity come different religions and belief systems too. Even though San Francisco is primarily Christian, the Bay Area embraces nearly all other religions.

If you would like to have a religious experience yourself you might want to join a Sunday morning service in Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, enjoying gospel music and jazz.

But yet the many different citizen groups live remarkably well together and many tend to live and socialize with people different from themselves.

The weather in San Francisco

San Francisco has a typical Mediterranean climate with cool dry summers and wet mild winters. Within the lower 48 states, San Francisco is the US city which registers the lowest mean summer temperature and during the winter season frost is very unusual. Fog, on the other hand, is something we have to deal with often, especially during the summertime.

But no matter the climate, we the locals think that San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities on earth and we love our charming hills, the nearby mountains, the Bay and the Pacific Ocean and the liberal way of living.

Sightseeing in San Francisco

San Francisco has a wide selection of sightseeing tours and something for everyone from Bay Cruises including Alcatraz and Golden Gate Bridges over self guided bike tours, go carts, walking tours to high scale luxury tours to the world famous HOP ON – HOP OFF sightseeing tours with Open Top Sightseeing.

Alcatraz Island San Francisco

The worlds most famous 12 acre Island, Alcatraz San Francisco…

The military took over the island in 1853 and in 1854 the first lighthouse was built. However today’s´ lighthouse is from 1909.

It is said that running a prison on the Island was as expensive as a night at the Waldorf! Where would you prefer to stay?

Escape from Alcatraz

Few managed to escape but among those were the Anglin Brothers and Frank Morris who in 1962 floated away in a homemade raft and never were seen again!

The movie “Escape from Alcatraz” starring Clint Eastwood made their escape famous.

Visit Alcatraz

Today you can visit Alcatraz San Francisco by ferry from pier 33. Pre-bookings are recommended during peak season. Please visit www.alcatrazcruises.com for further information.

Pier 39 - San Francisco

It is only in San Francisco that the noisy Sea lions have occupied what used to be a popular small yacht harbour. Come and see the splashy Sea lions located right next to more than 110 stores, 12 bay view restaurants and many other attractions on Pier 39 San Francisco. Please visit http://www.pier39.com/ for more information.

Learn more about the other amazing sights on our tour

SAN FRANCISCO - MUIR WOODS - MONTEREY - CARMEL - WINE COUNTRY - YOSEMITE all in one day!

We are looking forward to see you in San Francisco.

The staff at OPEN TOP SIGHTSEEING