San Francisco

Day 1 · ~4.1 km

1. 

   1

   Coit Tower

   A 1933 fluted column ringed inside with Depression-era murals

   Morning · 50 min · $

   Walk the ground-floor murals before you join the lift queue, because they are free and they are the reason to come: twenty-six painters covering the whole ring with Depression California — fields, docks, a newsstand, a holdup. Then decide about the lift; the view is the second-best thing here.

2. 

   2

   Filbert Street Steps

   Wooden stairs down a cliff garden, past the wild parrots

   Morning · 40 min · free

   Take them downward, not up: start at Coit Tower and descend to Levi's Plaza. The garden gets denser the further you drop, the bay stays in front of you the whole way, and your knees will thank you for the direction.

3. 

   3

   City Lights Booksellers

   The Beat publisher that won its obscenity trial in 1957

   Midday · 30 min · free

   Go up to the poetry room and sit down. There are chairs by the window and the shop means them to be used; this is the rare stop where staying put is the point.

4. 

   4

   Transamerica Pyramid

   1972, quartz-faced, the skyline's signature

   Midday · 15 min · free

   Do not stand underneath it; from the base it is just a wall. Walk two blocks down Columbus and turn back: the taper only reads from a distance, and that distance is where every photograph of this city is taken from.

5. 

   5

   Cable Car Museum

   The powerhouse where the cables actually turn, free to enter

   Midday · 40 min · free

   Go to the lower viewing floor before you read anything. Four huge sheaves are pulling the cables that run under the streets outside, at a steady nine and a half miles an hour, and once you have watched the machine the exhibits upstairs stop being a museum and start being an explanation.

6. 

   6

   Ina Coolbrith Park

   A terrace named for California's first poet laureate

   Any time · 20 min · free

   Climb from Taylor and stop at the first landing rather than pushing to the top. The bay opens between two buildings exactly there, framed the way a window frames it — keep climbing and the frame is gone.

7. 

   7

   Lombard Street Crooked Block

   Eight switchbacks of brick and hydrangea

   Morning · 20 min · free

   Take the pedestrian stairs down one side instead of queueing to drive it. The drive is two minutes and gives you nothing to look at; the stairs let you stop halfway, which is where the hydrangeas and the view down to Coit Tower actually line up.

8. 

   8

   Powell-Hyde Cable Car Line

   The hill climb that is both the ride and the sight

   Morning · 40 min · $

   Do not queue at the turntable. Walk five blocks up Powell and board at an intermediate stop, where the conductor takes standing passengers and the wait is minutes rather than an hour. Stand on the outside running board for the Hyde Street crest, where the street drops away and Alcatraz appears straight ahead.