The Marina is San Francisco at its most relaxed and California-coastal. Built on land reclaimed from the bay for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, it is flat — a rarity in this city of hills — bright, and breezy, with a young, social, prosperous feel. Ironically, that reclaimed ground shook hard in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; the neighbourhood rebuilt and has been booming ever since.
Its showpiece is the Palace of Fine Arts, a romantic Greco-Roman rotunda and lagoon left over from the 1915 fair. Along the water, Marina Green offers wide-open lawns and views across the bay to Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, while Chestnut Street provides the brunch spots, bars, and boutiques where the neighbourhood socialises. Fort Mason, a former army post turned cultural campus, anchors the eastern edge. Come for the waterfront, the sunshine, and the easygoing pace.