There are excellent reasons northern California‘s “City by the Bay” is one of America’s most storied cities (if far from its most typical). Born as a colonial Spanish mission and fort on the tip of a peninsula, San Francisco was transformed by the gold rush of the 19th century; spectacularly destroyed by the Great Earthquake in the early 20th; home of the 1960s “Summer of Love“; and in the 21st, once again reinvented as the pre-eminent world capital of high tech. This is an entertaining drama queen indeed, and one of this country’s most fun and fascinating cities to explore. 

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