Twin Peaks is the hill the whole city is arranged around — the geographic centre, the two bare summits the fog rolls over first, and the one place you can stand and see all of San Francisco at once. Most people drive up, photograph the view, and leave. Walk it instead.
About three kilometres, best in the morning before the marine layer thickens. Start at Christmas Tree Point, where the 37 bus drops you and the downtown skyline lines up across the bay. Then leave the parking lot behind and climb — North Peak first, twenty minutes of grass and switchback, where the Mission blue butterfly still hangs on. Cross the saddle to South Peak, the taller and quieter of the two, and the view swings west to the ocean.
Sutro Tower watches over all of it, three red-and-white prongs taller than the hill. Drop east to Tank Hill, smaller and almost empty, and end down through Kite Hill above the Castro, the city tilting up at you the whole way down. The 37 takes you back.
