Purple Roofs Travel Newsletter: March 2007

March, 2007 - Volume 9, Issue 3

Editor's
Notes

Purple Roofs Travels

Travel Columns

Inns
for Sale

Special
Offers

Click here to go to the PurpleRoofs.com Home Page

Editors' Notes

Welcome to the Purple Roofs Travel Newsletter!

This Month's Travel Articles

This month we have a great article from the Gay Travel Guys, Donald and Ray, about Tucson, AZ - thanks, guys!

Innkeepers - write us an article about your area, and we'll include it in a future issue of this newsletter with credit and links to your website and email addresses. Contact wheretostay@purpleroofs.com for more details.

Purple Roofs Visits San Francisco

Late last year, we visited San Francisco again, and include here our favorite things about the city and our other favorite city there, Walnut Creek. We also took the Local Taste of the City Tour, and enjoyed guide Tom's view of the wonderful bakeries and Cafes of North Beach. Our report on gay San Francisco is below.

Special Offer Accommodation Notices

As always, we also have our Late Availability & Special Offer notices (138 offers in 16 countries/regions) all at http://www.purpleroofs.com/lateavailability.html, or just check your favorite destination page - these notices are also right there on the regular listings.

Travelers - Try a Home Trade Membership for Just $60 for 3 Years...

...and stay for free with other gay, lesbian, and gay friendly travelers around the world. More details on our Mi Casa Su Casa site at: http://www.gayhometrade.com.

Seen Our Real Estate and Wedding Sections Lately?

We've been beefing up our realtor, mortgage lender, and wedding vendor listings over the last several months, and now have over 400 real estate professional listings in 45 US states, Spain, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. We also have over 600 Wedding Vendor listings in 42 US states, Asia, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Mexico and the South Pacific.

Check out our real estate professional listings here: http://www.gayrealtynetwork.com
Check out our wedding vendor listings here: http://www.purpleunions.com

Innkeepers - Two Scam Alerts

Scam #1: Scammer claims to be another innkeeper the recipient knows, and asks for money to be wired:

"My partner and I own and operate the HH Whitney House in New Orleans. Friends of ours own the Noble Manor B&B in Pensacola, Florida. They were taken in by a caller who identifed himself as my partner Randy and convinced them to wire $600 to Toronto to help us out of a dire emergency while in that city. Our friends didn't know that we had never left New Orleans and our only problem today was recovering from Mardi Gras hangovers. As far as I can tell, this scammer might have linked our two properties through PurpleRoofs.com. Aside from separate paid listings on travel-related sites, the only internet reference I could find that indicated a relationship between us and Noble Manor is the page you guys created to help us and other innkeepers following Hurricane Katrina." --sent in by Glen, HH Whitney House

Scam #2: Comes through a Purple Roofs form, similar to the old Nigerian money transfer scams:

"I just got this today and thought you might like to know and pass the word to your membership to beware.....hugs, sandra PS The subject line on their email was PURPLE ROOFS INNS FOR SALE. I am Rose Aziz, 23years old and the only daughter of my late parents Mr.and Mrs.Aziz, My father was a highly reputable busnness magnet-(a cocoa merchant)who operated in the capital of Ivory coast during his days. It is sad to say that he passed away mysteriously in France during one of his business trips abroad year 12th.Febuary 2004.Though his sudden death was linked or rather suspected to have been masterminded by an uncle of his who travelled with him at that time. But God knows the truth! My mother died when I was just 14 years old, and since then my father took me so special. Before his death on Febuary 12 2005 he told me that he has the sum of Ten Million United State Dollars.(USD$10 000 000) left in a security company in a mettalic trunk box, but the security company didn't know the content because it was registered as family valuables for security reasons. He also hand over the documents to me. My sincere regards, MISS Rose." --sent in by Sandra, Cliff Cottage

That's it for this issue - see you next time! :)

Mark & Scott, PURPLE ROOFS

Purple Roofs Travels

We visited San Francisco near the end of 2006. See our San Francisco accommodations page here. In this month's travel article, we'll share some of our favorite parts of San Francisco and the Bay Area with you.

The City

We have an ogoing love affair with the city of San Francisco that dates back decades. As the gayest city on earth (though technically that title may now belong to Palm Springs), "The City" is a multicultural dream, where you;re just as likely to meet someone walking down the street from Japan or Italy as from Northern California.

And about "The City" - if you've ever lived in the Bay Area, you know that when someone mentions "The City", they mean San Francisco. Not San Jose. Not Oakland. Not Berkeley. San Francisco.

The City is relatively small - just 46.7 square miles - but it's jam packed with interesting neighborhoods and things to do. And then there's the greater Bay Area, with an amazingly diverse array of parks, cities, and other natural and man-made amenities.

Every June, the city hosts the largest Pride Parade in the world - San Francisco Pride, which brings over a million folks to Market Street. We attended the parade last year, and here's a link to the 2006 SF Pride slide show.

The city also is home to the dashing young mayor, Gavin Newsom, who made history in 2004 by allowing gay marriage in the city. Though the marriages were later overturned by the California Supreme Court and the whole thing is still pending a final ruling, the city joined almost 4,000 gay and lesbian couples before things were shut down, including us. And though Newsom has run into some difficulties recently personally and politically, we will always be grateful to him for the brave stand he took on our behalf.

If you have a chance, stop by City Hall in the Civic Center where the whole thing took place - City Hall was recently restored , and the building is gorgeous, inside and out. See the two pics below - one of the stair where many weddings were performed and the other of the inside of the dome.

And here are a few more shots we took in the city - the entry to Chinatown, and a couple view shots of Sutro Tower.

In this month's newsletter, we'll cover just a few of our favorites in The City and in the Greater Bay Area, including The Castro, Yerba Buena Garden/Moscone Center, Union Square, San Francisco Centre, and Walnut Creek. We'll also cover a great walking tour called Local Tastes of the City in North Beach.

Accommodations

We didn't visit any of our accommodations this time, but we list more than 30 hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other gay friendly accommodations in our San Francisco section:

http://www.purpleroofs.com/usa/california/sanfrancisco/sfregion.html

The Castro

We'll start with the gay heart of The City. The Castro's Business District is one of the most compact gay districts we've run across in our travels, running from Market Street in the north to about 19th in the South, and extending a block or so east and west. In these two blocks, you'll find a gay bookstore, a bunch of gay bars, some good restaurants, the Castro Theater, and a bunch of boutique shops.

The Castro is less gay than it once was - when Scott first came to the Bay Area in 1991, the place was bustling all the time, thronging with gay and lesbian singles and couples.

Now, property prices have gone through the roof, and as older gay and lesbian folks sell and move out of the district or The City, fewer new gay men and lesbians can afford to buy into the neighborhood. Instead, more young straight couples are moving in, changing the neighborhood's character. In fact, there have even been complaints about some of the gay window displays by several families with kids - and you'd think they would have had an idea what they were getting when they moved here. But by and large, the transformation is slow, steady, and peaceful.

Several large chain stores have moved in too, most notably Pottery Barn at the edge of the district.

But still, the Castro is the Castro, and it's still well worth a visit. When you arrive, you can't help but notice the large rainbow flag that flies on a pole at the corner of Castro and Market - in front of the old B of A building that's become an incubator for non profits. It always makes me proud to see the beautiful rainbow colors flying above our neighborhood in The City.

Getting here is easy - if you're driving, take Market Street southwest from downtown to castro Street. But it's better if you can take a cab or the Muni - San Francisco's municipal transit line. Parking here is at a premium, especially in the evenings - so if you don't have to park, so much the better.

You can hop on to these beautiful, restored historic railcars from anywhere on Market, including the waterfront/embarcadero or Union Square and the Powell Street cable car turnaround. The cost is just a buck or two - for more information on these historic cars, click here.

We have a number of favorite places here:

A Different Light Bookstore: One of the best gay-owned bookstores around. Great selection of books, magazines, and more (and some great gay-themed holiday cards). Click here.

Under One Roof: Everything sold at this great store goes to help people with HIV - they have a great selection, from home decorations to total kitsch. Check the clearance room near the back for some great bargains and some interesting things. Click here.

Worn Out West: Whether you want leather or Leather, you'll find it here. Click here.

Castro Theater: A beautifully restored old single screen theater. This is one of the main venues for the Frameline film festival, an annual gay/lesbian film festival in The City. During the rest of the year, the Castro Theater shows classic movies and gay-themed films. Click here (Theater). Click here (Frameline).

Planet Weavers: A fascinating boutique store with an Asian tilt - interesting art, books, candles, and much more from around the world. Click here.

Firewood: A great San Francisco restaurant on 18th Street a block off Market - try their salad with apples and candied walnuts. Click here.

Harveys: This used to be the Elephant Walk (ok, so we're dating ourselves for anyone who knows ther Castro). The place had a really cool vibe, with these large straw fans and great bar seats looking out on Castro and 18th, the epicenter of the Castro. Now it's Harveys, a whole lot slicker but without the charm, but it still has the best people-watching spot on Castro.

Many businesses here are open during the day, but the Castro really comes alive at night, especially if you want to go bar hopping. And for the coffee-addicted, there's a Starbucks here too.

San Francisco Centre

Traveling back down Market Street, you'll find The San Francisco Centre, arguably the most beautiful Mall in the City. The centerpiece of the Centre is the multi-story atrium that climbs from the basement floor to the top of Nordstroms - the escalators climb gracefully around the oval central well from the mall levels right up into the department store.

The Centre also used to be home to Emporium, a great department store that was the counterpoint to Macy's across Market Street in Union Square. When Macy's bought out the Emporium stores a decade or so ago, they closed the Emporium store in the Centre, and it sat empty for years.

But now the space has been renovated and part of it has been converted into The City's only Bloomingdales department store. The rest of it has been made into individual stores and some first-class restaurants. Our favorite so far is Zazil, a mexican restaurant specializing in seafood, with a great atmosphere. Click here. When we first visited Zazil (we've since been back), we met a woman doing Christmas shopping for a male relative. Without any prompting, she leaned over and asked our opinion on what kind of gift to get him. San Francisco is like that - it's still a small town in many ways (while it's definitely a city in others).

The Emporium dome at the Centre has also been refurbished, and is beautifully lit at night.

The Centre is a great place for lunch or dinner - and take some time to wander the great stores here, including Painted With Oil, a really cool art shop where you can order any of the art you see in custom sizes and colors - and the artist will actually paint it to order. Click here.

To visit the Centre website, click here.

Union Square

In the heart of the downtown area, where the Powell Street cable car line meets Market Street, Union Square radiates out from its namesake public square south to Market, west to Nob Hill and the Tenderloin, north to Chinatown and east to the Embarcadero.

Union Square is just across Market Street from the San Francisco Centre.

Union Square is all about the shopping - this is a great place to go for your Holiday Shopping. Book a night in a hotel and spend the day on a shopping quest!

It was great this year too to see both a Menorah and a Christmas Tree sharing the square - symbolic of The City's commitment to multiculturalism and differing points of view.

A little history - Union Square was a gathering place for Civil War protests in the mid 1800's and was named for the pro Union rallies that were held here, and the beautiful stature on a pillar in the center of the square that honors Admiral Dewey's defeat of the Spanish navy at Manilla Bay.

The buildings around the square burned down after the 1906 earthquake, but the square remained. The square became run-down by the late 1980's, and the constricted design (entrance to the central square was limited to the four corners by rows of bushes and it had become a magnet for homeless people), the Square was remodelled in the late 1990's, and it has been opened up into a much more welcoming public space, complete with an open-air cafe and weekend art vendors setting up shop in the plaza. For more history on Union Square, click here.

The square itself is fronted along the south by Macys - one of their flagship stores that has seven or eight floorfs and spans most of the block. And that doesn't include the men's store across the street!

There's a Cheesecake Factory here on the top floor - if you haven't been to one, they have EVERYTHING - the menu has got to be something like 30 pages long. Seriously. And it has great viewes of the square itself. But get there early for lunch, as it gets really really busy. Click here.

Right off the square on the East is Maiden Lane, a two block alley that's been closed to car traffic to allow outdoor Cafe's to flourish. There are also a number of great shops along here to visit.

South of the Square along Powell Street, you'll find a lot of those 5 T-Shirts for $10 places and places selling camera equipment of questionable manufacture. But there's also Blondie's Pizza - a Bay Area tradition that expanded from standing room only a couple years back to a full seating restaurant. Click here.

And talk about friends of the community - there's a huge Virgin Records store here at the corner of Powell and Market. Click here. And don't forget our personal favorite, the Apple Store (at Stockton and Market) where you can check your email for free under the guise of checking out their latest cool toys. And yes, we're Mac Nuts. Click here.

We have a couple other places we love to eat when we're in Union Square - Sotano Grill, a couple blocks up Powell Street from the square on the right, is a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican Place with live music at night, and it has a cool little alcove off the main dining room that has a couple tables and sites under the sidewalk. Click here.

Our other favorite is L'Ottavo Ristorante - a block north and two blocks west f the square on Sutter Street. While the food here is decent but not fantastic, the atmosphere is great, and it's a very romantic place to take your partner for dinner. Click here.

Be sure to wander around a bit - if you're up for a bit of a walk, your feet can take you up into Chinatown, over to the Embarcadero Center and the waterfront, or even up to Washington Square and North Beach. And you can always find a taxi to take you home.

Union Square is really easy to reach. You can drive in - and there's a parking garage under the square, as well as a more accessible one one block north of the square at Sutter and Stockton.

But it's much better (as is almost always the case in San Francisco) to use public transportation. From most of the bay area, you can take BART to the Powell Street Station, walk up Powell two blocks and you're there. Within the city, you can take Muni (the F Line up market, for instance, on the historic rail cars, or from Fisherman's Wharf or Van Ness, take the cable cars right into the square (get an all-day pass and visit Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, and a number of other points of interest along the two cable car lines). Or take a taxi - it's fairly affordable within the city limits.

Check out the cool statues belkow that we found in front of a shop just off the Square, and another view of the central square.

Yerba Buena Gardens & Moscone Center

Just south of Market Street, kinda behind the San Francisco Centre, you'll find one of the lesser known treasures of San Francisco. Yerba Buena Gardens sits in the shadow of the Metreon (more on that in a moment, Moscone Center, MOMA, and the Marriott Hotel. Click here.

This small urban park is a grassy, hilly, tree-shaded patch of heaven - a wide open space that pulls folks out of nearby buildings like a magnet at lunchtime on a sunny day. The park was originally conceived in 1980 by then-Mator Dianne Feinstein's government, and was intended to bring art and artists to the area, to preserve and foster diversity, and to make the area sustainable.

Defined at its south end by a beautiful fountain dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. and his teachings, the park is a great place to stop by in the midle of the day for a picnic lunch.

There's an outdoor cafe here, and a Starbucks kiosk just inside the Metreon on the park's western edge - grab a muffin and a frappucino and just stop for awhile an soak in the city.

There's also one of the great picture opportunities in the city here - the Museom of Modern Art, a really cool modern building just across the street from the park, in front of one of the historic beauties of the city, the old Pacific Telesis headquarters building - a great juxtaposition of the old and the new that defines The City.

If you get sick of fresh air and sunshine, you can hop into the Metreon. This was supposed to be the Next Great Retail Concept. Built in the late '90's as the anti-mall, the center was meant to showcase the Sony store inside, and be dedicated to technology with a state of the art movie theater (complete with an IMAX screen), the Discovery Channel Store, the Playstation Cafe, and an upscale food court which includes another Firewood Cafe (as mentioned above in Tha Castro section).

But the center failed to bring in as much traffic as was hoped for, and plans for additional Metreons in other cities were scrapped. But still, the place is a marvel, built as it is over conference rooms for Moscone Center (the city's convention center). and packed with interesting stores. There's also a buffet restaurant on the top floor where you can take in views of Yerba Buena Gardends below. But if you go to the movie theater, be prepared for a bit of sticker shock - the prices here are some of the highest we've seen during our travels. Click here.

If you have kids, check out Zeum - just across Howard Street south of the Metreon. It's a great interactive museum for kids. Click here.

And of course, there's Moscone Center itself - home to hundreds of events each year, including Macworld. It was also where the AIDS Danceathon used to be - we participated for a number of years, and one time we were 10 feet from Madonna when she made a surprise appearance on stage in VERY street clothing. She really is just like us. :) Click here.

If you're in the area at night, check out the Marriott Hotel across the street from Yerba Buena Gardens - affectionately called The Jukebox for its art-deco look. There's a great bar at the top with some of the best free top-floor views of the city. Order a drink and look for a table by the window where you can watch the residents and visitors to the city go by below you. It's kinda Rear View Window meets Google Earth.

Local Tastes of the City Tour

The last time we were in the city, we took Tom Medin's Local Tastes of the City Tour in North Beach, just a bit north of Union Square. This is San Francisco's Little Italy, a compact district of great restaurants, distinctive architecture and charming cafes.

Tom is a proponent of the slow food movement, and he strongly believes we should try to eat more locally and know more about where our meals come from. He founded Local Tastes of the City to hilight the local North Beach vendors who produce and sell great local foods and drinks.

North Beach itself was literally a beach in the early 1800's. Over time, as ships sunk in the bay, they were buried and became the fill that the city was built on. And in 1849, 1850, and 1851, there were three great fires, each of which reduced most of the small city to rubble, creating more fill for the bay. Ironically, in the great earthquake and fire of 1906, North Beach was one of the few areas that didn't burn down.

The Barbary Coast Trail runs through this area, a great free walking tour of the Gold Rush era in The City. Go to http://www.barbarycoasttrail.org/ for a downloadable audio tour ($14 for the northern half, $14 for the southern half, or $25 for both) of the trail, which starts at the end of the Hyde Cable Car Line at the western end of the Fisherman's Wharf area, and ends just south of Market. Estimated time for each half of the trail is 2 1/2 hours.

But back to the Local Tastes of the City Tour. We met Tom on a cloudy SF morning at one corner of Washington Square (another great city park where you'll find groups of people practicing martial arts, flocks of pigeons and seaguls, dogs catching frisbees, and the occasional tourist from Southern California who'll share a cappucino and a bit of casual conversation with you on a park bench while you soak in the city.

After a brief introduction, Tom took us to our first stop on this delectable tour - Caffe Roma - where they roast their own coffee beans the old-fashioned way, using a really cool contraption I'll call (for lack of memory) the Coffee Bean Cooking Thingamajingy (CBCT). On the tour, all the food is included with your tour ticket, and here we enjoyed a really smooth, flavorful coffee.

Manager Anthony Azzollini was very friendly, and the whole place has a welcoming atmosphere and that wonderful smell of fress-brewed coffee. Click here.

After coffee, we all gathered around the CBCT, Tom showed us how the machine is used to roast the coffee beans to the perfect level of roastyness, not overdone like Starbucks beans, (which are often burned in the process), to create a final product that is not too strong and bitter.

Next we proceeded past Union Square to the home of some of the kost divine truffles we've ever tasted. XOX Truffles makes irregularly shaped truffles that are melt-in-your-mouth good. We each were given a small bag of their mini truffles, and they didn't last long. San Francisco has a great environment for chocolate makers - the cool air and humidity keeps the chocolate from drying out, so they chocolate makers don't need to use air conditioning, which can affect the texture of the chocolate. These great Truffles sell for $70 a lb., but are well worth the price. Click here.

We left the Truffle shop and walked by Washington Square Park again, and up Filbert Street toward our next destination.

From here, we had a great view of Coit Tower, built in 1933 by an eccentric local woman who was famous for her support of the local Firemen. The tower is supposed to resemble a fire hose nozzle, and is a great place to take pictures of Downtown and the Golden Gate Bridge. Click here.

If you have the chance, take a Taxi up to Coit Tower (parking can be hairy there during the tourist season, so you might wanna have them let you off at the bottom of the hill and walk up). Enjoy the views, and then look for the entrance to The Filbert Steps, just down the road a few steps from the parking lot. Although there are stairs throughout the North Beach area, one set is especially impressive. The gardens are amazing, and the views spectacular (and remember, folks that live here have to carry all their groceries up the stairs) - and if you're a Tales of the City fan, this is where Ms. Madrigal's place is supposed to be. When you reach the the bottom, you'll be right behind Levi’s Plaza (yes, the jean maker) in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, where there's another great little city park (in front of their headquarters) and all of the wharf spread out before you. And since you taxi'd up here, you don't have to walk all the way back up those steps to your car - isn't that great? :)

Back to the tour. :) Next on the list was Liguria Bakery, home to one of the sternest Italian women we've seen yet and some of the best focaccia bread we've ever had.

The place kinda reminded us of the Soup Nazi - you don't wanna cross these folks, but the lines get long because the bread is so good. But get there early - once they run out of bread, that's it until the next morning.

Next, we visited the Italian French Bakery. This place has two brick-fired ovens where the bread is baked, and its fascinating watching them get loaded up. One guy has a long wooden spatualy, and he and his partner load it up with unbaked loaves of bread. When the long stick is full, the bread is loaded into the oven, the stick is pulled out, and the whole process starts again. Once the oven is full, it's sealed to let the bread bake, and these guys move immediately to the other oven across the room to unload the fresh baked bread. Then they load it up again, and move back to the first oven to start the whole process over, like clockwork. Too slow, and the bread will burn. Too fast, and it won't fully bake.

The ovens themselves are a marvel too. It can take decades for a new brick oven to settle in - older ovens cook best, baking the bread with heat radiated from the pre-heated bricks.

The Bakery's front room is beautifully decorated with murals on the back wall (see the picture at the start of this section) and the bread is fantastic.

Somewhere in the middle here, we visited Caffe Trieste, the hang-out spot for many famous musicians and artists since the mid 1950's, when Papa Gianni and Mamma Ida first opened the Cafe. Pictures on the walls attest to the many celebrities who've stopped by for a cup of coffee and an impromptu performance, but the one that catches your eye is the beautiful black and white collage with Papa Gianni superimposed looking down at everything from above (below right). Click here.

Next, we visited Palermo Delicatessen for some premium salami meats and olive oils.

This stop provided some of the best comic relief on the tour, as, while we were sampling the extra virgin olive oils and trying to decide which one was best, an older gentleman walking by snorted snad said "Hey, any virgin will do."

Next, we then stopped at Victoria Pastry Company for some of the most divine pastries, a welcome capper to the tour. We came in as a group and sat together at three tables, and we must have been a bit obvious as a tour, because a big Italian American guy with a Russian bride (yes, he told us this) leaned over to us and asked us "Wgar country are you guys from?" Quick witted as always, we replied "California - and you?" Click here.

Throughout the tour, we chanced upon some of the art of North Beach - including the three murals below:

We also passed the Stinking Rose, a famous North Beach Italian restaurant named after a nickname for garlic - and expect lots of it if you eat here. Click here.

The tour ended at Caffee Macaroni, a great place for Pizza at the south end of North Beach (click here), and also the top floor over the Purple Onion, a comedy club and performance venue in the basement that was popular in the 70's, and recently restored to its former glory.

Stars like Phyllis Diller, the Struthers Brothers, the Kingston Trio, Maya Angelou, and many more performed here. The space still has the 70's feel, and is very small and intimate. For more on the history and reopening of the Purple Onion, click here. For events information for the Purple Onion, click here.

Local Tastes of the City offers a great North Beach walking tour that's long enough to give you a great sampling of North Beach cuisine, but not too long for folks who don't walk much in their daily lives. Tom also offers tours of Chinatown, Golden Gate Park, the Haight, and Fisherman's Wharf - check out his website at http://www.localtastesofthecitytours.com, or call him at 888-358-TOUR!

New Conservatory Theater

San Francisco has many great theater venues, one of which is The New Conservatory Theater, an independent theater venue in the basement of the 25 Van Ness Building at Van Ness and Market with three separate theaters, that's dedicated to gay-themed plays.

We recently became season ticket holders, and have seen a number of productions there, including Queer Carol (a gay version of A Christmas Carol) and more recently The Dying Gaul, a disturbing but vividly acted story about a you gay writer who compromises his ideals to make it big in Hollywood. We also recently saw Farm Boys, about gay men in rural America.

If you're in the city for a few days, check their website to see what's playing - there are often last minute tickets available, and the production and acting are first-rate.

Pictures here are of the play The Dying Gaul, taken by Stephanie Temple, courtesy of the New Conservatory Theater. Click here for tickets.

Walnut Creek

Now we're gonna clue you into one of our favorite places in the whole world. Walnut Creek, once ranchland east of San Francisco and one of the early crossroads of the area, has morphed over time into a truly mature, wonderful city and a destination in its own right.

It's the shopping hub of Contra Costa county in the East Bay, and is easily accessible from San Francisco via the Pittsburg/Antioch BART line for $4.25 a person each way. The trip is direct - no changing trains - and takes about 35 minutes.

There's a free shuttle to downtown from the BART station (Bus 104), or you can walk there in 15 minutes through the pleasant Main Street downtown. If you take the shuttle, it runs from 7:29 am until 7:31 pm weekdays, with more abbreviated weekend hours. We suggest getting off at Civic and Locust (at the Regional Center for the Arts building) and walking a block east to Main Street to start your Walnut Creek visit. Check the 104 schedule here.

Walnut Creek has a great location, nestled at the base of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa county, with a temperate climate (very rarely over 100 in the summer or below 50 in the daytime in the depths of winter), and a great city government focused on open space protection, downtown redevelopment, and the attraction of quality businesses to serve the local population. We lived in Walnut Creek for 8 years, and have watched it grow and change for the last twenty. Old run-down strip malls from the '50's have been replaced a block at a time by wide, brick-paved pedestrian friendly sidewalks and new buildings that fool they eye by breaking up their massive (often block-long) size into discrete architectural elements, like the one top-left.

As the city has grown, the planners have included a number of new live-work buildings, including mixed use retail-residential (apartments or condos on top and retail on the bottom) as well as artist loft units combining work and home. The city has also been very proactive with parking, adding new parking structures as needed and making additional parking a requirement for many new developments.

The result is a city, once just another suburb, that is coming into its own, and one of the nicest places to live and visit in the Bay Area. Respected retailers have flocked here, including the Tiffanys store in the heart of downtown. Walnut Creek is also a hotbed of great restaurants, most single-store and/or locally owned.

Walnut Creek has a centralized Downtown (pic at right - it's a real one, not one of these shopping-mall-built-in-a-night versions that are springing up everywhere in suburbia. The downtown runs down Main and Locust Streets roughly from Civic St, in the north to Mt. Diablo Blvd. in the south, and is generally the older part of the city. Main Street is lit up at night by beautiful white lights on all the trees, a gift to the city maintained by the Main Street Merchants Association.

Main Street is home to a number of great restaurants and shops, and most of the buildings here are original, though many have gotten facelifts in recent years. Locust Street, one street west, has fewer shops, but is the real up-and-comer in the downtown area; Crusing Away Travel is here - and Jay, one of their agents, helped us book our recent RSVP cruise in the Caribbean - more on that in the May newsletter.

Walk down Main Street and poke your head into any shop that piques your interest - there are many.

One of our favorite city restaurants is here - Tomatina is on Main Street near the southern end of the Downtown area. They have a great (covered) outdoor seating area and a cute inside, with a beautiful brick oven in the open kitchen. Highlights here include the bread rolls literally soaked in garlic and olive oil (sinfully good) and the Piadine (think salad on a pizza bread - fold it and eat) are great too. We'll let them explain the name in their own words (from the Tomatina.com website):

"On the last Wednesday of August, at the peak of tomato season, the village of Bunol, Spain stages a tomato war. For two hours, the otherwise sober citizenry happily pelt each other with ripe, red fruit and the streets turn into rivers of tomato juice.

After much laughter, spirited mischief and camaraderie, friends and neighbors gather in the town square for the food and wine festivities. They call it 'La Tomatina'."

This is a great place for a light or casual lunch or dinner while in the 'Creek - but come early or late, becuase the dining room is small, and it fills up quickly. Click here.

Also here is a great little family-owned Italian restaurant called Salvatore Ristorante. It's a little off the beaten path - a block off Main Street to the East on Broadway, just north of Lincoln. But it's worth the search. Click here.

At the southern end of Downtown is Broadway Pointe, a newer center built in the late '90's to mimic the downtown corridor. Though it's really one large building wrapped around a parking garage, this is one of the pedestrian-friendly facades we mentioned earlier. Each storefront has its own individual character. The building sits at a historic location, where the two roads leading from Pacheco and Lafayette converged, giving the city its original name, The Corners.

Il Fornaio at Broadway Pointe is an absolutely gorgeous restaurant - walk through the huge doors and you're transported into a huge, beautiful space, with more intimate dining rooms lining the right side of the restaurant.

You can just pop in and choose from a great variety of fresh breads to take with you, or stop in for a full meal.

Try lunch on the patio on a sunny day, or enjoy the ambiance and fireplace inside for a cozy, romantic meal.

Service here was a bit sketchy when they first opened, but they've done well by us on return trips. Click here.

There's also a beautiful fountain here, though it's not as good a people-watching place as the one at Broadway Plaza - more on that later. See the brick "riverways" that meander through the plaza on the eastern side of Broadway Point? They meet at the fountain, which marks the spot where Walnut Creek and another tributary used to meet before part of the Creek was buried underneath the city. Today it goes underground at Broadway and Lincoln on the eastern edge of Downtown, and reemerges half a mile later at the Southwestern end of Broadway Plaza.

Next, we'll tackle Broadway Plaza. Originally built in the 50's with a grocery store as an anchor, this outdoor mall has been regularly remodelled and upgraded, and today is one of the nicest shopping areas in the city. There's a Macy's here, but also many other small sotres and restaurants. Click here.

Our favorites?

Boudin, for authentic San Francisco sourdough and clam chowder (and also great fresh sandwiches), features a great outdoor seating area that's covered in case it's raining. It's the same place you'll find on Fisherman's Wharf in The City. Click here.

Also here is California Pizza Kitchen (CPK). Yes, it's a chain, but they serve great food, and this place gets really busy every day. We recommend the Tuscan Hummus or the Herb Onion Focaccia (fantastic) for an appetizer, and the Tostada Pizza or Grilled Chicken Caesar Sandwich for the main course. Click here.

You can spend a couple good hours wandering Broadway Plaza - and one of our favorite people-watching spots is here. Stop by Yogurt Park for a frozen yogurt or grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and then find a spot at the water fountain in the heart of the Mall. Folks come here from all over the East Bay, and it's always fun to watch the little kids reaching into the water, almost toppling in before righting themselves and laughing at their parents nearby.

Just across from the mall, at The Corners again (the Mt. Diablo/Main Street intersection), you'll see the Tiffany store.

Just to the left of Tiffany's is Walnut Creek's own Apple Store (remember the free email check tip)?

We have a friend who came with us on a visit to San Francisco a couple years back, and used their computers to check up on his eBay Auctions. We also like stopping in to see the latest iPods - we're still waiting for the 100 Gigabyte model for under $100. <grin>

To the right of Tiffanys, you'll see one of our new favorite restaurants, especially for lucnh in the summertime. Va de Vi has a fantastic chicken sandwich served with root chips (taro, carrot, etc). They have a very small streetside patio, but the real secret here is the outdoor seating behind the restaurant.

This part of the block used to be a Great Western Bank with a beautiful large oak tree shading the atm area behind the bank. The bank closed becuase of a merger, and the building sat mostly empty for several years, occasionally being used as a Halloween Store and briefly as the Black Sea Gallery.

When redevelopment finally arrived, the developer wanted to chop down the tree to make room for more building. But (and here in a nutshell is why we love Walnut Creek) the city said no, insisting on modification of the plans to preserve the tree. The trunk was surrounded by hay bales during construction to prevent any accidental damage, and now a wooden deck has been built around it as outdoor seating for Va de Vi. On a sunny afternoon, there is no better outdoor locaton for lunch in all of Walnut Creek! Click here.

From Va de Vi, look north across Mt. Diablo, and you'll see a great mural complete with faux windows on the side of the La Fogata Building. This restaurant has so-so food, but is the location of the oldest building in Walnut Creek, the original general store built in the 1860's and rebuilt several times over the years.

Finally, we'll cover South Locust Street - another recently redeveloped area of the city. Locust originally dead-ended into Olympic Blvd., and the block southwest of Locust and Mt. Diablo was mainly known for its old motel and a car repair shop.

The whole block was redeveloped, and now houses a huge Century Theater (great to while away a couple hours on a hot afternoon) and a great array of shops. The block south of Olympic was also underutilized, taken up mainly by Simons, a great family-owned hardware store.

The Simon's store was closed, the building razed, and Locust was extended an addtional block to Botelho. A whole new downtown-style block was created, and two statues greet you at the entrance to this new block.

If you're here for dinner, try Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, but bring your credit card. If you've never been, Ruth's Chris is a national chain that features some of the best steak you'll ever have, but it's pricey - typically $25-50 per plate - and that's for the meat only - sides like potatoes, fries, or vegetables are extra. But the steaks are usually that good. Click here.

Once you're done for the day, head back to the fountain at Broadway Plaza and pick up the free shuttle there back to BART. If you miss the bus at night, don't worry - you can get back to BART on foot in about 15 minutes, and Walnut Creek is very safe at night.

Things That make You Go Hmmm......

Time for another installment of things that caught our attention (for all the wrong reasons) on our trip. First, we liked this building - not sure what's inside - we're thinking maybe it's where all those guys that submit the classified personals live? At least, all the gay ones...

And the other pic's a little guy we found in a Castro-area florist shoppe a few years back. And yes, he *is* happy to see you. <grin>

Travel Columns

Traveling in Our Fabulous World
Tucson, Arizona
Visit the Purple Roofs Tucson Page
By Donald Pile & Ray Williams, Gay Travelers

There are a lot of reasons why you would want to visit Tucson but the best two reasons are staying at the Royal Elizabeth Bed and Breakfast Inn and dining at the Cafe Poca Cosa. All the other reasons to go to Tucson are just secondary. Jeff DiGregorio and Chuck Bressi purchased the Royal Elizabeth four years ago. They are from the Washington, D. C. area and decided for a big change in their lives. The "Liz" as it is commonly referred to is the oldest Victorian era Inn operating in Arizona. It is an 1878 Victorian adobe mansion in the historic downtown area of Tucson just a couple of blocks away from where all the action is, but yet far enough away to have complete peace and quiet. The house has a very colorful history and Jeff and Chuck are glad to fill you in on the history. An adobe wall surrounds the Inn and you have complete privacy. You enter through the grand entry hallway with it's beautiful wood walls, doors and ceilings. The house has been brought back to it's original beautiful self. The ceilings are tall, the rooms spacious and the dining room is perfect for the absolutely fabulous breakfasts that the hosts serve. Both Jeff and Chuck are experienced chefs and they enjoy cooking. Their breakfasts are so fabulous and different that they have to explain to their guests exactly what they are eating! They never have the same thing twice, Never ! Everything is made from scratch, usually the night before so that it can marinate overnight. With a perfect table setting, wonderful food and interesting guests, what else could you ask for to begin your day?

The "Liz" is a full service B and B and offers everything including swimming pool, and a computer room/library. This is the ONLY place to stay in Tucson! When you are the best, you're simply the best! They are located at 204 South Scott Avenue . Their toll free number is 1-877-670-9022. Their website is: www.royalelizabeth.com.

The other good reason to go to Tucson is to dine at CAFE POCA COSA restaurant which is located just a block and a half from the "Liz" at 110 E. Pennigton Street. This restaurant gives a whole new meaning to "having an exciting, enjoyable, fabulous dining experience." The restaurant is always packed and loud, but this is okay as it is so wonderful. The food is prepared fresh and they have a large menu to choose from. We used taste buds that we hadn't used in years. The owner, Susanna KNOWS how to do things right. People returns again and again and again to enjoy this utterly FABULOUS dining experience! We can't wait to return ourselves. It truly serves some of the finest Mexican food that we have ever had.

Of course you really do need to do some other things when you are in Tucson. The Saguaro National Park is located just a few miles west of the city and is a great outdoor recreational area where you can see hundreds of cacti. It is a great drive-thru area. The Old Tucson Studios is a smaller version of Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Many western movies were made there over the years. The Mission San Zavier del Bac is the oldest Catholic Church in the country still serving the community for which is was built. It was built between 1777 and 1797.

The arts and theatre are alive and well in Tucson as they have their Ballet Arizona, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Arizona Opera Company, Tucson Jazz Society and the Tucson Poetry Festival. The Arizona Theatre Company performs classical and contemporary drama as well as musical comedy. There are abut a half dozen gay bars in Tucson. The Congress Tap Room located downtown in the Congress Hotel, 311 E. Congress is the premier dance club. Howl At The Moon is located at 915 W. Prince Road. IBT's (It's About Time) located at 616 North 4th Avenue. Venture-N at 1239 No. 6th Avenue. Woody's at 3710 No. Oracle and The Yard Dog Saloon at 2449 No. Stone. An auto is essential in Tucson as this is a sprawling city.

Before going to Tucson check out their website at www.visittucson.org/ and check out Gay and Lesbian Arizona at www.visitgayarizona.com

Always remember to have fun when traveling, meet new people and TALK to everyone! TRAVELING IN OUR FABULOUS WORLD is written by Donald Pile and Ray Williams, Award-winning Celebrity travel columnists who write for gay publications from Coast to Coast. You can email them at: gaytravelers@aol.com or visit their webpage at: http://www.hometown.aol.com/gaytravelers.

Always remember to have fun when traveling, meet new people and talk to everyone!

TRAVELING IN OUR FABULOUS WORLD is written by Donald Pile and Ray Williams, Award-winning Celebrity travel columnists who write for gay publications from Coast to Coast. You can email them at: gaytravelers@aol.com or visit their webpage at: http://www.hometown.aol.com/gaytravelers.