Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
3. NORTH BEACH
This lively neighborhood is the city's original “Little Italy” and is still noted for its
great Italian restaurants and cafés, mostly lined up along and near Columbus Aven-
ue. In the 1950s, it was also a magnet for the Beat writers and poets, notably Jack
Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who brought to the area a Bohemian style which it still
sports today. This is a great place for nightlife, from the tawdry bawdiness of Broad-
way strip joints to the simple pleasures of listening to a mezzo-soprano while you sip
your cappuccino (for further details see
North Beach Views
).
Google Map
View photo
4. NOB HILL
With the advent of the cable car, San Francisco's highest hill was quickly peopled
with the elaborate mansions of local magnates - in particular, the “Big Four” who
built the Transcontinental railway (for further details see
Charles Crocker
) - and
the name has become synonymous with wealth and power. The 1906 earthquake,
however, left only one “palace” standing, now the Pacific Union Club, which still
proudly dominates the center of the summit. Today, instead of private manses, Nob
Hill is home to the city's fanciest hotels and apartment buildings, as well as Grace
Cathedral.
Google Map
View photo
5. RUSSIAN HILL
Another of San Francisco's precipitous heights, one side of which is so steep you'll
find no street at all, only steps. The most famous feature of this hill is the charming
Lombard Street switchback - “The World's Crookedest Street,” - which attests to the
hill's notoriously unmanageable inclines. As with Nob Hill, with the cable car's ad-
vent,
Russian Hill
was claimed by the wealthy, and it maintains a lofty position in
San Francisco society to this day. It supposedly took its name from the burial place
of Russian fur traders, who were among the first Europeans to ply their trade at this
port in the early 1800s.
Google Map
