San Francisco, California, USA

https://goo.gl/maps/MEKYmZ8ubNo
.
Consider permission permanently granted to be outlandish: other towns may surprise you, but in San Francisco you will surprise yourself. Good times and social revolutions tend to start here, from manic gold rushes to blissful hippie be-ins. If there's a skateboard move yet to be busted, a technology still unimagined, a poem left unspoken or a green scheme untested, chances are it's about to happen here. Yes, right now. This town has lost almost everything in earthquakes and dot-com gambles, but never its nerve.
.
Every available Bay Area–invented technology is needed to make dinner decisions in this city, with the most restaurants and farmers markets per capita in North America, supplied by pioneering local organic farms. San Francisco set the gold standard for Wild West saloons, but drinking was driven underground in the 1920s with Prohibition. Today, San Francisco celebrates its speakeasies and vintage saloons – and with Wine Country and local distillers providing a steady supply of America's finest hooch, the West remains wild.
.
California is one grand, sweeping gesture – a long arm hugging the Pacific – and the 7-by-7-mile peninsula of San Francisco is a thumb pointed optimistically upwards. Take this as a hint to look up: you'll notice San Francisco's crooked Victorian rooflines, wind-sculpted treetops and fog tumbling over the Golden Gate Bridge.Heads are perpetually in the clouds atop San Francisco's 43 hills. Cable cars provide easy access to Russian and Nob Hills, and splendid panoramas reward the slog up to Coit Tower – but the most exhilarating highs are earned on Telegraph Hill's garden-lined stairway walks and windswept hikes around Land's End.
.
Image: DigitalGlobe
Words: LonelyPlanet
.
#earthimages #earthimage #upintheair #abovetheclouds #satelliteimage #satelliteimages #EarthOverhead #overview #overvieweffect #sf #sanfrancisco #california #goldengate

Also in Around the Globe

Monopoli, Italy

Sitting on Puglia's Adriatic coast around 30km south of Bari, Monopoli is a lovely town for a day trip, possibly in combination with Polignano a Mare just up the coast, mixing a dip in the sea with a good lunch and a wander around the old town centre.

Like so many towns on the Adriatic, Monopoli's history has been thoroughly influenced by its east-facing position and its fortified sea-front walls and castle tell many a story.

Parking in or around Piazza XX Settembre, location of a colourful street market, head east towards the cathedral. To find it just look upwards and you are sure to see its elegantly conceived bell tower thrusting into the sky. Built in 1693, the tower is over 60 metres high, completely dominating the town below.

Tunis, Tunisia

In Tunisia's capital, the term 'living history' really does apply. Here, waves of colonisation have endowed the city's fabric and culture with an intoxicatingly rich and complex flavour that becomes apparent wherever you explore.

Take the magnificent medieval medina, sidelined by the French after colonisation but coming into its own in the 21st century, as boutique hotels open and arty cafes lure locals back to the neighbourhoods their grandparents grew up in. And consider the historic settlement of Carthage, once colonised by Phoenicians and Romans but now the province of upwardly mobile locals, whose sophisticated lives play out among the ruins.

Ed Dueim, Sudan

Ed Dueim is on the west bank of the White Nile, between Khartoum and Kosti. It is home to the University of Bakht, which lies to the north of the town. The university has played an important role in promoting education throughout Sudan. It is known for its two-year course called Al Sanatain, which prepared teachers to teach school, attracting students from all regions of Sudan and neighbouring countries.