Taking the Kids: Visiting Golden Gate Park for its big birthday
Hopefully, such virtual tours not only will spark some ideas of where you might want to travel later in the year but stave off boredom at home.
It's hard to believe now but skeptics never thought Golden Gate Park could ever be built. They called the area the Great Sand Wastes, but even those who believed in the project could never have imagined what Golden Gate Park would become -- everything from that famous tent city after the earthquake to the site of historic anti-war rallies and rock concerts to the home of world-class museums and a favored place for locals and visitors, attracting some 24 million visitors every year. For trivia lovers: Golden Gate Park is the third most visited city park in the country after Central Park and the Lincoln Memorial.
Right in the middle of San Francisco, Golden Gate Park is huge -- 1,017 acres to explore -- miles of lawns, bridle paths, lakes, and 7,000 kinds of plants. Buffalo roam in the famous paddock. Sunday is a great time to bike ride, as cars are not permitted on certain roads through the park.
Did you know that Koret Children’s Quarter and Carousel was the first public playground in the country? That the Japanese Tea Garden, was the first place in the country where fortune cookies were served?
Families gravitate to the California Academy of Sciences, an aquarium (there are more than 2,000 fish, how many different colored ones can you count?), planetarium, natural history museum and habitat for native birds, butterflies and more all under one roof. There's even a new four-story living rainforest that circles up through a glass dome. This is also a great place to learn about the creatures that live along the California coast and how we can be better stewards of the environment around us.
What will you do first once you can visit Golden Gate Park -- fly kites, or go for a bike ride? Visit the Academy of Sciences? Paddleboat or row on Stow Lake? Have tea in the Japanese Tea Garden?
How about a picnic -- soon, let's hope!
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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. The Kid's Guide to Philadelphia, the 13th in the kid's guide series, will be out this spring.)
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