Experience the best of Sausalito

Sausalito climbs a steep hillside on the north shore of San Francisco Bay, facing the city across the water. Its name comes from a Spanish word for a little grove of willows. Bridgeway, the main street, runs along the waterfront past yacht harbours and small shops, and the hills above are covered in terraced houses with decks and gardens. A colony of floating homes lines the shore, and a wartime shipyard once built ships here.

The Bay Model, a giant hydraulic scale model of San Francisco Bay and the Delta, shows the tides and currents. Otis Redding wrote The Dock of the Bay while staying on a Sausalito houseboat in 1967. South of town, Fort Baker and the Marin Headlands, with Point Bonita Lighthouse, face the Golden Gate, and the redwoods of Muir Woods lie up the valley to the north-west. Ferries cross to San Francisco.

Seafood on the waterfront, including Dungeness crab and oysters from Tomales Bay, comes with coffee and pastries from the cafés on Bridgeway. Fog often rolls in on summer afternoons, and autumn gives the clearest and warmest days.