RE: Berkeley,CA Posted: Thu March 23, 2006 05:54 PM UTC
The trip on BART (Powell to Downtown Berkeley) is about 30 minutes. During evenings and weekends you'll have to transfer at MacArthur station in Oakland, but the transfers are often timed, so it's fast and simple. Driving is simple as well, and without traffic should take about 15 minutes- though with traffic it can take thirty minutes.
Berkeley is especially nice for summer visits to the Bay Area, as it doesn't get fogged in the way San Francisco does in the warmer months.
If you're into food, head to the Gourmet Ghetto (Shattuck and Vine is the center, but in recent years it's continued to stretch up towards Rose and back towards University). There you'll find the Cheeseboard Collective (great cheese and fabulous breads), Cheeseboard Pizza next door (where you can grab slices or whole pizzas and hang out in the grassy median and listen to live jazz), Chez Panisse restaurant downstairs and cafe upstairs (Zagat rates the cafe as highly as the restaurant, but it's cheaper and easier to get reservations to), Cesar (tapas and cocktails that just keep getting better), Saul's (Jewish deli restaurant), and much more. It's also where you'll find the original Peets (Vine and Walnut), a cupcakery, and the soon-to-open Epicurious Garden (http://epicuriousgarden.com/about.html).
Fourth Street is another popular center, with many shops and restaurants. Fourth Street shops are located pretty much between Hearst and Virginia. Most of the food is fairly expensive, though both Bette's and Tacubaya are affordable standouts. There's a Cody's Books, some boutiques, shoe stores, a great architecture and design bookstore, a Hear Music, and, ooh, perhaps best of all, an ice cream shop called Sketch that has great flavors such as Earl Grey and ginger.
Elmwood, which you can reach by taking BART to Rockridge and then either walking or taking the 51 bus to College and Ashby, is yet another place for eating and browsing. Rockridge, which stretches along College on both sides of the 24 freeway, is another fun place to eat and stroll. Head up the hill towards Oakland and you'll find bookshops, restaurants, cafes, bars, and the like.
Other fun things to do:
Berkeley has two botanical gardens. One is the UC botanical gardens in Strawberry Canyon, and the other is the botanical gardens at Tilden Park up in the hills.
Urban Ore on Ashby and 7th Street is a place where people bring building materials and other reuse-friendly big and little things. It's fun to walk around.
There's a farmers market by city hall on Saturday mornings. Berkeley Bowl between Shattuck and Adeline is an amazing place to go to admire produce. The fruit and vegetable section has got to be an acre, and it's the only place I've ever seen with eight varieties of radishes and seven kinds of orange. But be warned, it's always crowded and waiting in line behind someone who is doing the weekly shopping for their co-op can make for long, annoying check-outs.
There's usually a lot happening around campus and Telegraph. The Berkeley campus has lots of trees and woodsy areas, and is rather pretty. Telegraph tends towards students, the gutter punks from the suburbs spare changing, and old hippies selling their necklaces, hats, and tie-dyes.
Berkeley Rep in downtown has been putting on some good (and a few great) lately, and the Aurora Theater Company is just next door has interesting stuff lined up as well. The Jazz School cafe, on the same street as the Capoeira cafe, is often busy during evenings.
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