Port of San Francisco, Seaport in San Francisco, US
Port de San Francisco is a working seaport along the bay in San Francisco, California, made up of historic piers, a cruise terminal, a fishing wharf, and the Ferry Building with its tall clock tower. The piers stretch out over the water on wooden piles, and the wide waterfront promenade called the Embarcadero runs alongside them from one end to the other.
The port took shape during the gold rush of the 1840s, when ships flooded the bay and the first wooden docks were built to handle the surge of people and goods. Over the following decades, those early structures gave way to the concrete piers and covered warehouses that still define much of the waterfront today.
Fisherman's Wharf is the most visited part of the waterfront, where vendors sell fresh Dungeness crab straight from the boats. Sea lions have taken over the docks at Pier 39 and have become as much a part of the place as the fishing boats themselves.
The waterfront is easy to walk or cycle along, and vintage streetcars run the length of the Embarcadero if you prefer not to go on foot. Coming in the morning is a good idea if you want to see the fishing boats return or browse the farmers market inside the Ferry Building.
Pier 70 still holds the iron and steel mills and shipyard buildings from the early 1900s, largely untouched. This section of the port is rarely visited by tourists even though it is one of the few places on the West Coast where that era of industrial waterfront history is still physically present.
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