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Welcome to Fisherman’s Wharf Hotels,
San Francisco’s most popular destination. Known for its historic waterfront, delicious seafood, spectacular sights and unique shopping, Fisherman’s Wharf offers a wide array of things to do for everyone.

Fisherman's Wharf Hotels offers great rates on hotels located near Fisherman's Wharf. All of our hotels have been approved by AAA and the Mobile Travel Guide, and have been inspected by our staff for quality assurance. We work with local hotels to provide you with generous savings off of regular hotel rack rates. Just added is our new Fisherman's Wharf hotel map feature. Use it to quickly locate the perfect accommodation and enjoy your visit to San Francisco.

Once home to a fleet of over 400 boats, nowadays Fisherman's Wharf supplies only a tiny fraction of the fish served in San Francisco restaurants, but a few vintage Monterey Hull fishing boats and modern diesel boats still work from here, and if you get up early enough, you can watch fishermen bring in their catch.

Often tourist-packed, today's Fisherman's Wharf is home to sidewalk seafood vendors, souvenir shops and other attractions.

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San Francisco sits on a peninsula, bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by San Francisco Bay. At the northern tip is the Golden Gate Bridge, the landmark by which all travelers orient themselves to the city. Golden Gate National Recreation Area, one of the largest urban national parks in the world, encompasses 59 miles of bay and ocean shoreline on both ends of the span. Noted for its dazzling scenery, the park preserves some 1,250 historical and cultural sites, including Alcatraz Island and Muir Woods.

On any sunny afternoon, Golden Gate Park is one of the most popular places in San Francisco. This attraction has it all: botanical gardens, museums, sports fields, playgrounds—even a buffalo enclosure and a fishing pond. Three miles south of its namesake bridge, the city park covers more than a thousand acres between Stanyan Street and Ocean Beach. A Dutch windmill stands at the western entrance; the white dome of the Conservatory of Flowers dominates the eastern end. This Victorian greenhouse shelters a humid jungle of giant ferns and delicate orchids. The entire park is an oasis of exotic greenery.

Fantastic, otherworldly plants from Chile, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa make the 55-acre San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum an unforgettable walk. Free guided tours are given every day. The Japanese Tea Garden, developed for the 1894 World's Fair, is especially lovely during cherry blossom season in the spring. Across the park, you can ride the carousel, have a picnic, jam with street musicians, hire a paddleboat or rent a bike or skates to cruise 7 miles of paved trails.

On rainy days, Golden Gate Park offers a cluster of museums around Stow Lake (one of a dozen man-made ponds designed by Scottish landscaper John McLaren). The burnished copper facade of the de Young draws visitors to one of the country's finest collections of American paintings. Founded in 1895, the museum underwent a massive expansion in 2005. Another of the park's highlights, the California Academy of Sciences, was recently torn down to make way for a $370 million structure designed by architect Renzo Piano. The new facility, now in temporary quarters downtown, will include Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium and the Natural History Museum.

North of the park on a hill overlooking the Pacific and the Golden Gate, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor is one of the city's greatest treasures. The Beaux Arts building, modeled after the 18th-century Palais de la Légion d'Honneur, was built to honor Californians who died in France during World War I. The ocean view from here is particularly breathtaking. This attraction is home to Rodin's famous statue, the “Thinker,” along with some 84,000 other sculptures, paintings, prints, decorative arts and antiquities.

A spectacular collection of Asian art spanning 6,000 years is housed at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, another attraction. Here are exquisite Persian ceramics, Cambodian deities, Indian temple reliefs, Thai daggers, Japanese textiles, Tibetan scrolls and one of the oldest Chinese Buddhas in the world.

The maplewood galleries of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art read like a “Who's who” of 20th-century art: Picasso, Matisse, O'Keeffe, Pollock, Magritte, de Kooning, Lichtenstein, Rothko, Warhol. The brick-and-steel building with its striated skylight is an artistic achievement in itself. In contrast to this modernistic landmark, the Palace of Fine Arts resembles a Roman ruin. The classical rotunda, built as the entrance to the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, was meant to last only a year. San Franciscans loved it so much, they made it permanent. Lagoons surround the palatial hall, which is home to Exploratorium, the museum of “science, art and human perception.” At this attraction, visitors of all ages will have fun touching, trying and testing their skills at 650 hands-on exhibits.

Another of the city's most revered antiquities is the Mission San Francisco de Asís, one of the oldest buildings on the peninsula. Still visible are the rawhide lashings that Spanish missionaries used in the 18th century to secure its redwood timbers. This attraction, also known as Mission Dolores, withstood the 1906 earthquake while latter additions fell. The adjacent church, an elaborate mixture of Moorish and Corinthian styles, is a striking counterpoint to the simple mission.

Sooner or later, all tourists make the pilgrimage to Fisherman's Wharf. The northern waterfront bustles with shoppers, sightseers, crab trappers and T-shirt vendors. To add to the noise and fun, Pier 39 is the winter home for hundreds of rowdy sea lions. Here too are museums, the historic Cannery, an aquarium and a fleet of tall ships at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Be sure to sample the Ghirardelli chocolate, sourdough bread and catches of the day.

Ferries from the Alcatraz Cruises fleet depart from Pier 33 for Alcatraz Island, the old federal prison that sits on a forbidding rock in the middle of the bay. Thirty-six prisoners tried to escape between 1934 and 1963, but none made it to freedom, and many died in the attempt. A group of American Indians claimed the island in 1969 and occupied it for 2 years. National park rangers lead guided tours, or you can explore “The Rock” on your own. Tours sell out quickly in the summer; call ahead for reservations.

If you've taken advantage of San Francisco's public transit, the Cable Car Museum and Powerhouse Viewing Gallery is worth a stop. Displays at the Washington-Mason Powerhouse include the first cable car, built in 1873. In an underground gallery, you can see the channels and pulleys that guide the cars beneath the street. The San Francisco system is one of only two National Historic Landmarks that move; the other is New Orleans' St. Charles streetcar line.

Any time left to explore beyond the city limits? Take a scenic drive north toward Mill Valley on SR 1. Here on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais is Muir Woods National Monument and one of the region's last old-growth stands of coastal redwoods. These ancient sequoias can reach 250 feet high and 15 feet across, and some have stood for a millennium. A paved, 1-mile walking trail leads from the visitor center to the aptly-named Cathedral Grove. Traffic heading to this attraction can be heavy on weekends; plan to arrive early. If you keep going north on SR 1, you'll reach the crashing breakers, grassy dunes and mossy forests of spectacular Point Reyes National Seashore.