.Best Place to Watch the Sunset

You know you live in the right place when you send your relatives your vacation photos and the one they all want copies of is the shot you took once you got back home to use up the last of your film. It probably helps that the photo shows a striking rose and orange sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge, with the city and Mt. Tamalpais glowing golden on either side. To duplicate the effect, head for Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina at the end of the day and watch the celestial drama unfold. It’s a popular place, so you’ll hardly have solitude (and if you don’t like dogs, don’t wander into the dry swaths of the middle hills, where a newly instituted dog park is barely marked by molding hay bales). But a walk along the water’s edge, where gusts of wind pick up toward evening and spray froth on the rocks, and curious ground squirrels scamper from their underground homes, is rewarded by some of the best sundowns this side of Hawaii.