This list includes the most popular tourist attractions and activities in San Francisco based on a survey done several years ago by the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Around the Town of San Francisco

1. Union Square, one of the city’s three original parks, is now a public space atop a multi-level underground parking garage and ringed with elegant shops and hotels. The Powell cable car line begins about a block away, and the theatre district is nearby.

2. Cable Cars are often called San Francisco’s moving landmark.

3. Chinatown expresses what Western architects thought Chinese buildings should look like. There’s much here that’s created just for the tourist, but with our hints, you can get a glimpse of the “real” Chinatown in its alleys and shops.

4. Lombard, the “Crookedest” Street is neither the crookedest street in San Francisco nor the steepest, but it’s surely the best-known. The “crooked” section is the block below Hyde Street. No car to drive down? Take the cable car to Hyde and Lombard and walk.

5. Coit Tower, atop Telegraph Hill offers panoramic bay and city views, and a bit of San Francisco in the 1930s preserved in its murals.

On the Ocean and Bay of San Francisco

1. Sausalito, just across San Francisco Bay, has some of the best views OF San Francisco in the area. Take a ferry over, browse a few art galleries and have lunch or dinner at Spinnaker, one of my favorite area restaurants.

2. Cliff House, on Ocean Beach. has been a San Francisco standard since 1863, when the first Cliff House was built. Today’s version is the fourth restaurant to stand on this spot.