Russian Hill: the crooked Lombard and the hidden lanes
The switchback block of Lombard, the secret of Macondray Lane, the hilltop, and the steep garden steps. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Lombard Street — the crooked block
Start at the top of the famous switchback, the one block of eight hairpin turns laid out in the 1920s because the grade was too steep to drive straight. Walk down the brick path on either side rather than fighting the car queue at the top. The view of Coit Tower frames the whole descent.

2. Russian Hill summit (Vallejo Street)
Climb back up and west to the crest of the hill, where the streets give out into stairways. The summit is residential and quiet, the houses turned to face the light. A few of them survived 1906 because neighbours fought the fire off with wet sacks.

3. Ina Coolbrith Park
A terraced pocket park dropping down the east slope, named for California's first poet laureate. The benches step down toward a clear shot of the bay and the bridge. Almost nobody who isn't local knows it's here.

4. Macondray Lane
The hidden one. A wooden-plank pedestrian lane reached by a stairway off Taylor, cottages and overgrown gardens on either side, no cars possible. It's the model for Barbary Lane in Tales of the City. Walk the length of it slowly and quietly; people live here.

5. The Vallejo Street steps
The steep stair-streets are the real Russian Hill. The Vallejo steps drop east through balustrades and planting laid out by Willis Polk in 1914. Take them down toward North Beach; pause where the city opens out between the railings.

6. Columbus Avenue, into North Beach
Land at the foot of the hill on Columbus, North Beach's spine. The Powell-Mason cable car runs along here, and the cafes of the old Italian quarter are a block on if you want to end with a coffee. The line takes you back to the turnaround.

Russian Hill: the crooked Lombard and the hidden lanes