San Francisco: A Photographic Journey

📓 Straddling the San Andreas fault and holding onto tall hills San Francisco perches, defiant, daring and irresistible. Like a bronco buster, she is not easily shaken. Earthquake, fire and flood have not been able to relocate her or diminish her charm. This is a city where even modern, quake-safe architecture does not detract from her air of elegance. San Francisco is elegant, despite the geological threat Her strength and tenacity are gloved in charm and cosmopolitan sangfroid. The famed Golden Gate has become a metaphor for all California. Spanned by its remarkable bridge, this harbor, often mist shrouded, is still the gateway to a fabled land - and not only for those seeking gold. In this beautiful city the climate is temperate and the pace relaxed. Even the characteristic cable cars scale its steep streets at a sedate nine miles per hour. So beguiling is San Francisco that people find it hard to leave. Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai communities and visitors from all over the world have settled here, enriching the town with their cuisines and cultures. Of course, some visitors, guests of the state, found it more difficult to leave than others. Inmates of Alcatraz Island were penned in by thick walls, harsh winds and strong currents. The photographs within these pages capture much of what entrances visitors, and beckon to those who have not yet discovered San Francisco.