Notable places

Esplanadi Boulevard, Esplanade Park... However it's called, everyone agrees that this section of Helsinki near the center of town is a tourist delight.

Easily reached by boat, it is a pleasant 30 minute ride from Helsinki harbor in Kruunuvuori bay. Once you arrive, you'll be treated to over 200 animal species with over 1,000 plant species. Though small by comparison to the great zoos, the collection offers a fascinating look at creatures all the way from the frozen Artic to the sweltering tropics.

Capital: Excellent or first-rate, American Heritage Dictionary. Yes, that undoubtedly describes Helsinki.

The area is one of the stopping points of the famous cable car rides and houses a Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39, the USS Pampanito Submarine Museum and gobs of other attractions.

Fisherman's Wharf is just one edge of the northern waterfront that blossoms out to include Ghiradelli Square near Van Ness Street to Pier 35 and Kearney Street.

By the time it first came into use as a U.S. Federal Penitentiary in 1934 prohibition had already ended. (Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to outlaw the sale of alcoholic beverages was passed in January 1919, but repealed in December 1933.) Nonetheless, Alcatraz' most famous figure from that activity, Al Capone, took up 'residence' from 1934 to 1939, when he was released.

There are over six million people in the San Francisco area, with 750,000 in the Bay Area itself. Nestled within that vast sea of individuals is a conclave known around the world as Chinatown.

In 1937, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House. That simple action officially announced an event much of the world was already anticipating: the opening of The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.