See the sights!
In the centre of the city, you’ll find Chinatown, the oldest Chinese quarter in North America. The dim sum tea houses are great for a drink and a light lunch. And no visit is complete without stopping at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in Ross Alley, where you can watch the cookies being made.
Union Square is the turning point for San Francisco’s cable cars – the last manually operated cable car system in the world, built to navigate several of the city’s steep hills. There are two routes from downtown to the wharf, and a third along California Street. The views from the hills down to the bay are breathtaking. We’d also recommend a trip to the Cable Car Museum on Mason Street and, to the top of Lombard Street, known as “the crookedest street in the world”.
Enjoy some time out in one of the fantastic green spaces, including Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and Alamo Square, which is overlooked by the Painted Ladies (below), a row of colourful Victorian homes. For a real escape, cross the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods, where you can walk among the giant redwood trees, then head out to the vineyards of Napa Valley.
Emilia Fox is teaming up with criminologist Professor David Wilson to reopen a number of unsolved crimes for new three-part series In The Footsteps Of Killers. The pair will use the latest forensic science and criminological research to shed new light on troubling cold cases, looking for leads the original investigation may have missed. Travelling to the locations of the crimes, Emilia and David will interview the witnesses, suspects and friends and family of the victims to attempt to build a picture of what exactly happened.
“Working on Silent Witness with experts in the reality of solving crime has inspired my interest in true crime,” explains Emilia, 46. “But, of course, the most important difference between fictional and factual investigations are the people directly affected in reality. The more involved with the investigations we became, the more passionate I felt about keeping these cases alive and trying to help find answers.”
l In The Footsteps Of Killers, Monday 7 June, Channel 4