San Francisco Best Evening Picnic Spot - Sutro Baths - Best Of San Francisco

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Best Evening Picnic Spot

Sutro Baths

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Sutro Baths

Ocean Beach, at the end of Geary

San Francisco, CA

Everybody loves ruins. They're romantic and eerie, and imaginations feed on the remnants to reconstruct the places and lives of yesteryear. San Francisco is too young a city to be rich in ruins, but we do have what's left of the Sutro Baths. The deluxe public bath house opened in 1896, and housed seven swimming pools under a huge vault. It was a last burst of Victorian grandeur that struggled to survive in the 20th century, and eventually burnt down in 1966. Today, the National Park Service owns the land, and it's a playground of rusting pipes and rotting concrete foundations. On a warmish evening, it's a lovely place to be. Bring picnic supplies and settle down on a concrete shelf above a shallow pool, and you can watch the sun sink down into the ocean waves. Be careful if you bring a date, though, it's the kind of place that encourages spontaneous marriage proposals.

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