On Location San Francisco I: Tours To Remember

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Kathy Amendola, owner of Cruisin' The Castro Tours

Sex and San Francisco go together like bread and butter. Sex has been a much larger part of the city's history than in other cities. Hundreds of thousands of men came to San Francisco in the middle of the 1800's in search of gold, and many others came after World War II when their ships pulled into port and they had nowhere to go; they stayed and made new lives. Still more thousands of flower children, gay men, lesbian women, and other alternative types also came to San Francisco in the period between 1945 and 1975, enhancing the city as one of the most progressive in the world. San Francisco has always been one of the most attractive destinations for travellers from the Asia-Pacific region. Now we know why!

With a huge imbalance of the sexes during the Gold Rush, men who got rich looked to spend their money on good times, and those who found empty hands where the nuggets where supposed to be sought solace the same way; the ladies of the night were working hard to make fortunes of their own. Just off Union Square is Maiden's Lane, and numerous streets in San Francisco's downtown area are also signs, literally, of a past where the company of women was as rare as the goldstrikes themselves.

Go Work Another Street...This One's Taken, Honey

All this historical information and much more comes from the extremely insightful tour called Cruisin' The Castro, led by the effervescent Kathy Amendola, owner of the business. Kathy is passionate about her city, and though much of the tour focuses on the very colourful gay and lesbian history of The Castro area, Cruisin' The Castro is not just for gay people and not just about The Castro. Did you know that most of central San Francisco is located in the crater of a volcano? That's why, when standing in The Castro, there are hills in every direction; these are the edges of the volcanic rim. Always the hedonists, gay men flocked to The Castro not only for the then-cheap real estate, which has transformed into some of the most expensive in the world, but also because it is one of the sunniest parts of the city; the chilling fog that rolls across the rest of the city rarely descends from the hills into The Castro. Kathy says that Australians constitute her second-biggest market, right after the Brits and just ahead of the Kiwis. All that Anglo repression is paying off for Ms. Amendola, as entrepreneurial as she is entertaining.

The Castro district is full of architectural wonders

If you like to visit the sexy side of town but don't want to sleep in it, Hotel Adagio is perfectly located between the refined ambience of Union Square, with its upscale shopping and generally fun buzz, and The Tenderloin District, which offers a grittier side to San Francisco that some people find appealing in its sordidness. This seamier side to life has been one of the city's most charming attractions since the days of the Gold Rush, when all those men came pouring into the city on their way to the goldfields further inland. Many non-military sailors and their captains also came to San Francisco to scratch their itches for riches; the abandoned ships left behind by the crews were first turned into floating real estate, then turned into the foundation for the skyscrapers built on top of the reclaimed land that also reclaimed the ships, which were simply covered over with earth.

For travellers looking to combine the freedom of San Francisco with the openness of Scandinavia, San Francisco is one of the stops permitted with a Scandinavian Airlines ticket flying via the US, which saves the decision as to whether it's Europe or America this year. Why not do both?