Fisherman's Wharf is the most touristed stretch of the city and still worth walking, if you know which parts to keep and which to pass through. The trick is to start at the loud end and end at the quiet one. Begin at Pier 39, where the sea lions hauled out onto the docks in 1989 and simply stayed — hundreds of them, barking and shoving, fewest in summer, free to watch for as long as you like.
Then cut inland to Fish Alley, the working slip where a few crab boats still land and clean the morning catch behind the souvenir frontage. West past the stands to Hyde Street Pier and the San Francisco Maritime park's fleet of historic ships — the square-rigger Balclutha, the ferryboat Eureka — boardable or readable from the free pier. Ghirardelli Square's red-brick courtyard comes next, the rooftop sign overhead.
The walk lands at Aquatic Park: the curved cove, the long municipal pier, the year-round swimmers of the Dolphin Club crossing the cold. Walk the pier for the view back, then duck into the ship-shaped Maritime Museum for the WPA murals. The Powell-Hyde cable car turns around right here.
