The Cable Car is high on the list of San Francisco attractions every visitor should experience. These San Francisco Cable Cars are antique streetcars that are still in operation. You can tour San Francisco and travel to the exciting San Francisco waterfront on one of two routes that goes to Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39.
Powell and Market is where you can get on the Cable Car, and it is also where the turn-around is. The track doesn’t make a loop; the Cable Car is rotated and sent back on its journey back up Nob Hill.
The ride is very slow and noisy, but the ambience of the wood benches and leather straps makes you remember that the Cable Car was really needed in the hilly city of San Francisco, California. The San Francisco Cable Car is old but it is by no means dangerous. It moves at a fairly slow speed with lots of stops. You’re rewarded with views when the Cable Car reaches a crest on the hill to let someone off; on some you can see the city and the San Francisco Bay Area beyond.
One Cable Car route goes up Powell to Mason Street, and the other on goes up Hyde Street closer to Ghirardhelli Square. When you take the Cable Car, It only costs $3.00 to ride to tour San Francisco, so this is an attraction you can’t afford to miss.
At the turn around at the base of Powell Street there is usually a long line of tourists waiting for the next Cable Car. There are so many people that amount of people that get on the cars at once is limited and the line grows, and the anticipation builds as you watch the cars rumble by.
You can avoid long waits by walking two blocks of flat walking past union square until you get to O’Farrell Street. There is another Cable Car stop here, and the conductor will not fill the San Francisco Cable Car at the turn around so that he can pick up the remaining passengers that are willing to hold on for the slow ride up Nob Hill.
Shortly after you board the Cable Car, one of the two conductors comes to collect a $3 dollar cash fare or look at your San Francisco Attractions Passport.
For over 125 years the San Francisco Cable Car has been the enduring symbol of the city by the Bay and a cheap and fun way to tour San Francisco. The California Line of the does not go to the turn around, and goes to the reaches old the limits of the early days of California Street. This is a pleasant ride as well; it’s less crowded and starts a short distance up Market Street towards the Embarcadero.
Some of the most unforgettable sights you will see on a California vacation can be had from Nob Hill and the high areas of San Francisco like Twin Peaks, which has unparalleled views of the Bay Area.
