Street Hiking in The City

Earlier this week I was in San Francisco for an Opeth concert...great!  The next day I had the opportunity to do some street hiking in The City.  In the early 1990s, when I lived in the Bay Area, I hiked the hills often, but since moving to Monterey, I haven't done it nearly as frequently.  It's always a treat...though hard on the Achilles tendons.  I need to come up here more.  This pic was taken from one of my favorite spots, Ina Coolbrith Park on Russian Hill.  I've been coming up here for forty years.  It's one of many little oases of calm in the midst of urbanity.  Folks come here to sightsee, do Tai Chi, or just relax with the morning paper.

Russian Hill is precipitous.  Here's a typical sidewalk, stepped to ease the strain on the ol' Achilles and to improve traction on rainy days.

Some of the streets on Russian Hill are simply pedestrian walkways and staircases, but with official street addresses.  This is an example.  There are pretty gardens in these forested nooks, along with resident cats and even parrots, though I didn't see any on this trip.  In some places there are old mid 19th century houses that survived the 1906 fire, which spared some areas on Russian Hill.

This pic was taken on Montgomery Street near Union, on Telegraph Hill.  There are a couple of pre-1906 houses in the foreground. 

Near the site of the previous pic is this fabulous 1939 Art Deco apartment building.  the exterior design on this side of the structure depicts the Bay Bridge, brand new at the time, along with the latest airplanes and ocean liners.

On the other side of the building, the past is depicted...a conquistador, sailing ship, and birds instead of airplanes. 

From the summit of Telegraph Hill, Sts Peter and Paul cathedral in North Beach lies in a pocket of sunshine, with the highrises of shady Russian Hill in the background.

A good workout is to climb up and down Telegraph Hill on foot!  These are the Greenwich steps...there are about 400 of them between Coit Tower and Sansome Street near the bayfront.

You can also take the Filbert Steps, a block to the north.  There are fine old bungalows on the steps, a century and a half old, that escaped the 1906 earthquake and fire.

The quake...and mainly the fire...wiped out most of San Francisco from downtown north, and west to Van Ness Avenue.  However, west of Van Ness many 19th century Victorian homes survived.  More escaped the fire in the Mission district to the south.  Most of the Victorians still in existence have been finely restored, and are worth over a million dollars.  Pacific Heights has many fine old homes.  This is a stick style residence, popular in the 1880s. 

While the Stick homes have squared bay windows, Italianate houses have angled windows.  This beauty is also in Pacific Heights.  I love the fancy trim on the perimeters of these homes. 

Queen Anne homes commonly feature round towers and fancy shakes on the exterior.  Many of these houses were built in the 1890s.  This one is on Gough Street across from Lafayette Square.  The windows in the towers are curved...I can only imagine how much  the glass costs.

Stick, Italianate, Queen Anne, Art Deco...San Francisco has a myriad of architectural styles.  For me, this is one of the fascinating elements of The City.  And, in keeping with the climate, there is a lot of Mediterranean architecture, such as this home in Pacific Heights.