One day in San FranciscoGold, hills and secrets
Start early at the cable car turntable at Powell and Market with "Cable cars, Chinatown and the Beats": Union Square, the Dragon Gate, City Lights and, to finish, the switchbacks of Lombard Street. From there it's a ten-minute walk downhill to Fisherman's Wharf for clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Ride the Powell-Mason cable car back to Chinatown and carry on with "From Yerba Buena to the city that rose from its ashes", from the buried Niantic to the Ferry Building. At dusk it's time for "Secret San Francisco", from Ross Alley to Coit Tower, then cioppino for dinner.
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Morning
Cable cars, Chinatown and the Beats: San Francisco highlights
- The cable car turntableHere the cable cars are turned by hand: climbing the hills since 1873 and saved by a group of determined women.
- Union Square, the square of VictoryPro-Union rallies, a goddess with the face of a future patron of the arts and the hotel that watched the city burn.
- The Dragon Gate, entrance to ChinatownThe gateway to one of North America's oldest Chinatowns, which survived an exclusion law and a plan to move it away.
- Waverly Place, the street of painted balconiesTemples on the top floors, family associations and the most photogenic balconies in Chinatown.
- City Lights, the Beat Generation's bookstoreA poet, a poem put on trial for obscenity and the bookstore that made North Beach the capital of the Beat Generation.
- Lombard Street, the street of eight curvesAn impossible slope tamed with eight curves of brick and flowers, with the bay as a backdrop.
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Lunch
Try Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl at Boudin Bakery. 160 Jefferson Street, Fisherman's Wharf
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Afternoon
From Yerba Buena to the city that rose from its ashes
- Grant Avenue, where the city was bornA ship's sail turned into a tent, a village called Yerba Buena and the square where gold was announced.
- Jackson Square, the district that survived the fireGold Rush warehouses, a bank run by William T. Sherman and the whiskey that, as the joke goes, God chose to spare.
- The Niantic, the ship buried under the officesWhere offices stand today there was water, and beneath your feet lie the remains of a whaler turned warehouse and hotel.
- The Ferry Building, gateway to the bayBefore the bridges, everyone arrived here; its clock tower outlasted two earthquakes and a freeway that hid it.
- Lotta's Fountain and the 1906 earthquakeThe gift of an actress who started out singing for miners became the meeting point of a city in flames.
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Early evening
Emperors, kidnappings and tunnels: secret San Francisco
- Old St. Mary's and Emperor NortonA clock that warned brothel-goers and, on the corner, the spot where the only emperor of the United States collapsed.
- Ross Alley, the alley of secretsGambling halls behind iron doors, tunnels nobody has ever found and a fortune cookie factory.
- The Old Ship Saloon and the Barbary Coast shanghaiersA bar that began inside a stranded ship, and the dark reputation of sailors kidnapped on the waterfront.
- Coit Tower and the girl who ran with the firemenA tower atop Telegraph Hill, a rebellious heiress and the fire hose nozzle nobody designed.
- Washington Square and the time capsuleA statue holding a message for the future, a wedding that never happened in that church and a tribute to the firemen.
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Dinner
Try Cioppino at Tadich Grill. 240 California Street