Stairway Secrets of San Francisco
Planning to visit San Francisco? You can see it on one of the many San Francisco Tours – from a San Francisco cable car, by ferry, on a bike, by Segway, on foot — or, you can start going to step class now because one of the most unique ways to see the City By the Bay is by walking along some of its 600 magical stairways. Experience just one, and you’re hooked!
Oh! where these stairways will take you.
Making their way up, over, down and across some of San Francisco’s 43 hills, the stairways - long ones, short ones; simple ones, fancy ones; ones made of stone, wood, terracotta, concrete, river stones, mosaic - connect footpaths that traverse neighborhoods, from the inside out. The building of the stairways all started when the city’s street grid was first laid out and was unable to take into account the complex contours and steepness of the hills. Stairways became neighborhood shortcuts, a way to cross from one point to another, from one hill to another, in the easiest and quickest way.
Stairway walks are pure discovery! All along them, wonderful details of San Francisco’s picturesque neighborhoods are brought into sharp focus. The geometric elements of San Francisco’s famous Victorian Painted Ladies jutt out along the paths. Monterey cypress, cedar, redwood, magnolia and ficus canopy overhead. There are small small parks, neighborhood jewels; terraced private gardens, fragrant with roses, plump with ferns, bordered in fresia; alleys filled with splashes of color. Whimsical garden sculptures pop up here and there, and odd containers, somebody’s claw-footed bathtub or rusting, wrought-iron basket, brim with flowers. Terraced slopes are covered with ivy, walls are topped with ornate finials or draped in bougainvillea, and interesting doorways lead one to wonder what lies beyond.
You’ll stumble upon more photogenic spots than you can imagine, hear the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, look down on the gilded and grand historic hotels of Nob Hill. Descend to street level for a capuccino, perfectly frothed, in an open air cafe, nibble on tasty dim sum in a Chinese family restaurant, grab a sandwich in a neighborhood deli, pungent with cheeses and salami.
And then there are the views! With the senses saturated with details seen close-up, reach the top of a stairway at the end of a footpath and suddenly, the world opens up! There, lying below is the most spectacular panorama – the sparkling bay, forbidding Alcatraz, soaring Golden Gate Bridge, the city skyline, bustling Fisherman’s Wharf, the big Pacific. From this perch on top of the world, yet literally just steps away from the activity below, sounds are muffled, distant. You’re there, yet removed.
Some stairways are well-known: Filbert Stairway, steeped in history; the Greenwich Stairway to Coit Tower; the mosaic “Magic Stairway” in Golden Gate Heights; the one down zigzagging Lombard Street. Others are less-traveled, hidden, off the beaten path. One of the best little books ever, filled with wonderful detail, ordinary and obscure, unusual and mundane, is Adah Bakalinsky’s Stairway Walks in San Francisco, a must-have companion on this enriching journey.
Take a stairway walk. Each step is filled with a sense of expectation – you never know what you’ll come upon, just around the bend. It’s magical, mysterious.