Cassio
Smash Master
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2011
- Messages
- 3,185
I wrote this for my friends but I figured someone here could use it. Some of this is imo but I have experience from having travelled to norcal/the bay area myself and having several family and friends live there. Also if you have AAA they are amazing for helping you find out what youd want to see, finding cheap tickets for shows, fares, etc. Anyways, here you go.
Information Dump:
Bay areas pretty awesome. As many places as I've been I dont believe any other place has such a dense level of cultural diversity. It has big cities in a true sense, unlike other parts of california, but with a very unique and WC touch.
Where you are:
The Golden Gate Bridge connects SanFran and Sausalito. The Bay Bridge connects SF and oakland. Antioch follows the bay to the northeast.
San Francisco bc it can be confusing. Up north is the SF bridge. East is the bay bridge and the way to antioch.
Cable cars/trolleys
Downtown
More of SF
Places youll want to see.
Hotel Address:
Ramada Inn
2436 Mahogany Way, Antioch, CA 94509
Closest BART station:
1700 West Leland Road
Pittsburg, California 94565
Public Transportation - Be safe! Public Transport is great but you should always be cautious esp as a tourist and esp at night. Most public transport runs from 5 am to 12am. Dont get caught missing the last busses/trains.
Heres a comprehensive PDF + Maps of basically the entire bay area. If you want to plan how youll get from one place to the other or find maps, start here:
http://mtc.ca.gov/library/getting_there/index.htm
Airport: luckily each airport has a BART station. Oakland airport requires a small but easy bus ride once youre there. For SFO use the yellow line and OAK use the Orange line and switch to the yellow. Read the BART section for more info.
Cabs: about $3 a mile.
BART: Use this to get to/from Antioch to/from other cities in the Bay Area. Youll occasionally need to switch lines. 80% of the time this wont get you around cities, it'll just get you to them. Most likely youll need another form of transportation to get somewhere specific. Pittsburg is the closest station to the Hotel (8 mi) and youll have to find another form of transportation to get from the station to the Hotel (or a cab, $25). Expect round trips to cost $10-$15 For maps, times and routes of the BART look here:
http://www.bart.gov/tickets/calculator/index.aspx
Buses:
You can use this website to find all aggregate bus routes for the bay area:
http://www.511.org/
Make sure if you need to transfer from one bus to the other you ask for a transfer.
Antioch- Use this website to get info on the Buses around antioch. Fares are around 1.50 -2.00. It takes about an hour to go one way from the Hotel to the Bart using the Bus. Use this link to help you use the antioch buses:
http://www.trideltatransit.com/
Addresses for the BART and hotel are at the top.
San Francisco:
Bus Fares are 2.00 or you can buy a 1/3 day pass for $14-$21 here:
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mfares/passports.htm
Routes and Times can be found here:
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mroutes/indxrout.htm
And maps for routes, etc can be found here:
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mmaps/indxmaps.htm
Berkeley:
http://www.actransit.org/
Other:
You can use both the greyhound and Amtrak to get to places like Sacramento, Yosemite, etc.
Tours - great and affordable to see just about everything. recommended for SF.
San Francisco:
http://www.buysanfranciscotours.com/tours/citysightseeing_tours_all_tours.html
Relatively cheap bus tour. I recommend the night tour and going back to what you like
[url[http://www.mrtoadstours.com/tours/experience.html[/url]
A more personalized and longer tour, only slighty more expensive. Again I recommend the night tour.
Others:
http://www.buysanfranciscotours.com/
In case you want to visit other parts of norcal with a tour, such as yosemite or napa valley. Slightly expensive but some can be worth it (especially yosemite). They leave from SF but you may be able to navigate the site to find other pickup points.
Food
yelp.com is your friend. But here some stuff.
Antioch: Most foods you find here you can probably find better somewhere else except maybe the mexican market I put down and the Moo Ice cream place. Still some of these places may be a lot more convenient to get to.
Berkeley (sorta Palo Alto too)-
A lot of college town niche places, coffee shops, bars and taverns, burgers, pizza etc. Usually for reasonable prices iirc.
SF -
If you need a recommendation Id be happy to give one. Trust me when I say youll have a hard time choosing, you'll basically find any type of authentic or high scale type of food in the world here. The most famous and rare types of food are usually asian or seafood. Theres a famous bakery on the wharf that sells clam chowder in a bread bowl thats essentially a tradition, although you can get the breadbowl + clamchowder anywhere and itll still be amazing. Also any mix of seafood + Italian, mexican, or Japanese is fantastic and something you wont find of even close to similar quality (if ever) outside SF (except Boston for Italian)
Other places with great food:
Napa Valley
Monterrey
Davis (Sacramento)
Most of the coast.
Things to do
Visit Berkeley for a day, maybe party at night
. Its a college town which makes it automatically awesome, but even among college towns is among the best. The campus is pretty cool too, since its summer theyll probably be partying a lot.
San Francisco:
crooked road/lombard street
visit the wharf esp pier 39.
eat a fancy meal on the wharf
eat a clam chowder bread bowl (famous and delicious!)
visit ghirardali square
Get a view of SF from across the bay, especially at night! (can be done by crossing the Golden Gate Bridge)
China Town (biggest in the US)
North Beach/Italian District
Ride a cable car
Check out golden gate bridge
Other:
See the Redwoods
Visit a Pacific Ocean Beach
Alcatraz Island
Visit Napa Valley (famous for wine)
Visit Silicon Valley (tech capital of the world)
Visit Yosemite (best place in norcal, but expensive
)
Visit Palo Alto/Standford (another cool college town).
Visit Santa Cruz (famous beaches, pier, surfing)
Visit Monterey Bay (great seafood, famous aquarium)
Visit Oakland (something to do...other stuff is better)
Visit Sacramento/Davis (sorta far away...maybe not worth it unless you have the time and money)
Information Dump:
Bay areas pretty awesome. As many places as I've been I dont believe any other place has such a dense level of cultural diversity. It has big cities in a true sense, unlike other parts of california, but with a very unique and WC touch.
Where you are:
The Golden Gate Bridge connects SanFran and Sausalito. The Bay Bridge connects SF and oakland. Antioch follows the bay to the northeast.
San Francisco bc it can be confusing. Up north is the SF bridge. East is the bay bridge and the way to antioch.
Cable cars/trolleys
Downtown
More of SF
Places youll want to see.
Hotel Address:
Ramada Inn
2436 Mahogany Way, Antioch, CA 94509
Closest BART station:
1700 West Leland Road
Pittsburg, California 94565
Public Transportation - Be safe! Public Transport is great but you should always be cautious esp as a tourist and esp at night. Most public transport runs from 5 am to 12am. Dont get caught missing the last busses/trains.
Heres a comprehensive PDF + Maps of basically the entire bay area. If you want to plan how youll get from one place to the other or find maps, start here:
http://mtc.ca.gov/library/getting_there/index.htm
Airport: luckily each airport has a BART station. Oakland airport requires a small but easy bus ride once youre there. For SFO use the yellow line and OAK use the Orange line and switch to the yellow. Read the BART section for more info.
Cabs: about $3 a mile.
BART: Use this to get to/from Antioch to/from other cities in the Bay Area. Youll occasionally need to switch lines. 80% of the time this wont get you around cities, it'll just get you to them. Most likely youll need another form of transportation to get somewhere specific. Pittsburg is the closest station to the Hotel (8 mi) and youll have to find another form of transportation to get from the station to the Hotel (or a cab, $25). Expect round trips to cost $10-$15 For maps, times and routes of the BART look here:
http://www.bart.gov/tickets/calculator/index.aspx
Buses:
You can use this website to find all aggregate bus routes for the bay area:
http://www.511.org/
Make sure if you need to transfer from one bus to the other you ask for a transfer.
Antioch- Use this website to get info on the Buses around antioch. Fares are around 1.50 -2.00. It takes about an hour to go one way from the Hotel to the Bart using the Bus. Use this link to help you use the antioch buses:
http://www.trideltatransit.com/
Addresses for the BART and hotel are at the top.
San Francisco:
Bus Fares are 2.00 or you can buy a 1/3 day pass for $14-$21 here:
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mfares/passports.htm
Routes and Times can be found here:
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mroutes/indxrout.htm
And maps for routes, etc can be found here:
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mmaps/indxmaps.htm
Berkeley:
http://www.actransit.org/
Other:
You can use both the greyhound and Amtrak to get to places like Sacramento, Yosemite, etc.
Tours - great and affordable to see just about everything. recommended for SF.
San Francisco:
http://www.buysanfranciscotours.com/tours/citysightseeing_tours_all_tours.html
Relatively cheap bus tour. I recommend the night tour and going back to what you like
[url[http://www.mrtoadstours.com/tours/experience.html[/url]
A more personalized and longer tour, only slighty more expensive. Again I recommend the night tour.
Others:
http://www.buysanfranciscotours.com/
In case you want to visit other parts of norcal with a tour, such as yosemite or napa valley. Slightly expensive but some can be worth it (especially yosemite). They leave from SF but you may be able to navigate the site to find other pickup points.
Food
yelp.com is your friend. But here some stuff.
Antioch: Most foods you find here you can probably find better somewhere else except maybe the mexican market I put down and the Moo Ice cream place. Still some of these places may be a lot more convenient to get to.
* = my recommendation
Mexican:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mi-pueblo-food-center-pittsburg*
Not too far but you need transportation to get here, but based on what ive read this is something Id highly recommend, especially if youre new to authentic mexican (none of that tex-mex BS from the southwest). Its a grocery store but it sounds like it sells food too and reviews say it has good prices. They have a seafood section that sounds pretty fresh, so if youre fortunate theyll have mexican-seafood dishes; a hard to find but amazingly delicious hybrid of dishes.
Seafood
http://www.yelp.com/biz/ifes-crab-cioppino-dinner-mountain-view
This place is a small ways, but sounds kind of awesome. They also mention a decent wait time. Its seafood so of course itll be pricey, but if youre in the bay area and can afford it its a necessary experience. h/o if youre able to go to san francisco you might want to wait for better options.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/maes-fish-fry-antioch
Southern style seafood place with good ratings. Any decent seafood places near the bay are probably going to be worthwhile.
Italian
http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-veranda-ristorante-italiano-pittsburg*
Good reviews, and most importantly this place serves italian-seafood, one of the best (and sorta rare) seafood hybrid cuisines imo and made even better by being in the bay area. This is another one where you can probably find a better one near SF, but would be good to try otherwise.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/bella-cucina-antioch
Great reviews and local.
Japanese
so many places...and bay area is a great place for japanese
http://www.yelp.com/biz/okawa-japanese-restaurant-antioch
More of a restaurant in case you arent a fan of sushi. Great reviews.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/little-tokyo-antioch*
Sounds more like a sushi bar and people saying it has good prices, also has great reviews.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/kabuki-sushi-antioch
Another sushi place with good reviews.
Burgers
http://www.yelp.com/biz/nations-giant-hamburgers-and-great-pies-pittsburg
A burger and bakery chain in norcal. Sounds good, Ive never been.
Filipino
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mabuhay-oriental-cuisine-and-food-mart-antioch
Im not a fan of filipino food, but its local and has good ratings.
Dessert
http://www.yelp.com/biz/brown-cow-farm-antioch-2*
An ice cream place, found this under local flavors and it has unusually high ratings. This is probably as specific to antioch as youll get and it sounds pretty good!
http://www.yelp.com/search?find_loc=Brentwood,+CA&cflt=icecream#find_loc=Antioch,+CA
http://www.yelp.com/biz/uphoria-yogurt-antioch*
http://www.yelp.com/biz/go-go-yoh-go-antioch
Apparently antioch has a ton of great local ice cream places in the area (first link). Personally Id recommend the frozen yogurt shops since supposedly the way most other parts of the country do frozen yogurt is different from the way cali does it. Here they are self serve and you have about 15-20 flavors (some normal and some ridiculous) of froyo and about 30+ different toppings you can put on it They usually put a price like $0.30 an ounce and you pay based on how much you serve yourself. If that sounds like something different Id recommend giving it a try. Over here these places are everywhere and sort of double as hangout spots as well, you can probably find other ones but the ones I listed had good ratings which means they probably have better toppings and flavors (although the last link isnt self-serve, so its not a normal cali experience).
Other
http://www.yelp.com/biz/steeltown-coffee-and-tea-pittsburg
A coffee shop thats more for atmosphere than anything. Since norcal is sorta famous for being hippies and living in coffee shops, I thought Id put this here if you were looking for the experience. Another place thats more of a WC chain is coffee bean and tea leaf, they have really good drinks and youll probably see them everywhere.
Semi-local
Youll find these places in other parts of the country but theyre more well known for being more common and having origins in the area. Again more of an atmosphere thing
http://www.yelp.com/biz/jamba-juice-antioch
Smoothy places are very popular in cali.
http://www.awrestaurants.com/
One of my favorite fast food places, and their root beer is amazing, definitely not the same when store bought.
BevMo
http://www.yelp.com/biz/bevmo-antioch
Not local at all but its the best place to buy alcohol, lol.
Mexican:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mi-pueblo-food-center-pittsburg*
Not too far but you need transportation to get here, but based on what ive read this is something Id highly recommend, especially if youre new to authentic mexican (none of that tex-mex BS from the southwest
). Its a grocery store but it sounds like it sells food too and reviews say it has good prices. They have a seafood section that sounds pretty fresh, so if youre fortunate theyll have mexican-seafood dishes; a hard to find but amazingly delicious hybrid of dishes.Seafood
http://www.yelp.com/biz/ifes-crab-cioppino-dinner-mountain-view
This place is a small ways, but sounds kind of awesome. They also mention a decent wait time. Its seafood so of course itll be pricey, but if youre in the bay area and can afford it its a necessary experience. h/o if youre able to go to san francisco you might want to wait for better options.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/maes-fish-fry-antioch
Southern style seafood place with good ratings. Any decent seafood places near the bay are probably going to be worthwhile.
Italian
http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-veranda-ristorante-italiano-pittsburg*
Good reviews, and most importantly this place serves italian-seafood, one of the best (and sorta rare) seafood hybrid cuisines imo and made even better by being in the bay area. This is another one where you can probably find a better one near SF, but would be good to try otherwise.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/bella-cucina-antioch
Great reviews and local.
Japanese
so many places...and bay area is a great place for japanese
http://www.yelp.com/biz/okawa-japanese-restaurant-antioch
More of a restaurant in case you arent a fan of sushi. Great reviews.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/little-tokyo-antioch*
Sounds more like a sushi bar and people saying it has good prices, also has great reviews.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/kabuki-sushi-antioch
Another sushi place with good reviews.
Burgers
http://www.yelp.com/biz/nations-giant-hamburgers-and-great-pies-pittsburg
A burger and bakery chain in norcal. Sounds good, Ive never been.
Filipino
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mabuhay-oriental-cuisine-and-food-mart-antioch
Im not a fan of filipino food, but its local and has good ratings.
Dessert
http://www.yelp.com/biz/brown-cow-farm-antioch-2*
An ice cream place, found this under local flavors and it has unusually high ratings. This is probably as specific to antioch as youll get and it sounds pretty good!
http://www.yelp.com/search?find_loc=Brentwood,+CA&cflt=icecream#find_loc=Antioch,+CA
http://www.yelp.com/biz/uphoria-yogurt-antioch*
http://www.yelp.com/biz/go-go-yoh-go-antioch
Apparently antioch has a ton of great local ice cream places in the area (first link). Personally Id recommend the frozen yogurt shops since supposedly the way most other parts of the country do frozen yogurt is different from the way cali does it. Here they are self serve and you have about 15-20 flavors (some normal and some ridiculous) of froyo and about 30+ different toppings you can put on it They usually put a price like $0.30 an ounce and you pay based on how much you serve yourself. If that sounds like something different Id recommend giving it a try. Over here these places are everywhere and sort of double as hangout spots as well, you can probably find other ones but the ones I listed had good ratings which means they probably have better toppings and flavors (although the last link isnt self-serve, so its not a normal cali experience
).Other
http://www.yelp.com/biz/steeltown-coffee-and-tea-pittsburg
A coffee shop thats more for atmosphere than anything. Since norcal is sorta famous for being hippies and living in coffee shops, I thought Id put this here if you were looking for the experience
. Another place thats more of a WC chain is coffee bean and tea leaf, they have really good drinks and youll probably see them everywhere.Semi-local
Youll find these places in other parts of the country but theyre more well known for being more common and having origins in the area. Again more of an atmosphere thing
http://www.yelp.com/biz/jamba-juice-antioch
Smoothy places are very popular in cali.
http://www.awrestaurants.com/
One of my favorite fast food places, and their root beer is amazing, definitely not the same when store bought.
BevMo
http://www.yelp.com/biz/bevmo-antioch
Not local at all but its the best place to buy alcohol, lol.
Berkeley (sorta Palo Alto too)-
A lot of college town niche places, coffee shops, bars and taverns, burgers, pizza etc. Usually for reasonable prices iirc.
SF -
If you need a recommendation Id be happy to give one. Trust me when I say youll have a hard time choosing, you'll basically find any type of authentic or high scale type of food in the world here. The most famous and rare types of food are usually asian or seafood. Theres a famous bakery on the wharf that sells clam chowder in a bread bowl thats essentially a tradition, although you can get the breadbowl + clamchowder anywhere and itll still be amazing. Also any mix of seafood + Italian, mexican, or Japanese is fantastic and something you wont find of even close to similar quality (if ever) outside SF (except Boston for Italian)
Other places with great food:
Napa Valley
Monterrey
Davis (Sacramento)
Most of the coast.
Things to do
Visit Berkeley for a day, maybe party at night
. Its a college town which makes it automatically awesome, but even among college towns is among the best. The campus is pretty cool too, since its summer theyll probably be partying a lot.San Francisco:
crooked road/lombard street
visit the wharf esp pier 39.
eat a fancy meal on the wharf
eat a clam chowder bread bowl (famous and delicious!)
visit ghirardali square
Get a view of SF from across the bay, especially at night! (can be done by crossing the Golden Gate Bridge)
China Town (biggest in the US)
North Beach/Italian District
Ride a cable car
Check out golden gate bridge
Other:
See the Redwoods
Visit a Pacific Ocean Beach
Alcatraz Island
Visit Napa Valley (famous for wine)
Visit Silicon Valley (tech capital of the world)
Visit Yosemite (best place in norcal, but expensive
)Visit Palo Alto/Standford (another cool college town).
Visit Santa Cruz (famous beaches, pier, surfing)
Visit Monterey Bay (great seafood, famous aquarium)
Visit Oakland (something to do...other stuff is better)
Visit Sacramento/Davis (sorta far away...maybe not worth it unless you have the time and money)