San Fran Travelogue

A local San Fran blogger or two have written that the famous city destination Lombard Street – the crookedest street in the world – isn't particularly interesting if you're from the city.  It is, they say, just

a flower-lined street with a bunch of pedestrians packed on the up and downside, and likely more than one impatient proprietor who lives in one of the houses lining the curved destination.  For the first-time tourist, though, the street is a neat experience if for no other reason it asks of you to walk the

real town, upward and inward from the waterfront, Union Square, the Presidio, or from any other direction, and see for yourself the hilly geography of the city and maybe most interestingly how homes have cutely adapted.  Maybe Lombard street, I'd respond, is only unique in how it represents the compact, creative

nature of the urban housing through the city, just amplified on Lombard because of its steepness.  In fact, back in 1922, it was one of the original proprietors who came up with the idea of turning the hill into a series of eight hair pin turns because most vehicles of the time simply could not descend the angle.  We walked from the Fisherman's Wharf after taking a trolley along the Embarcadero all the

way to Lombard and met the standard hundreds of tourists gathered at either end of the street, while other more rigorous travelers either walked up and down the steps or waited in a car line to drive down the street...slowly.  What adds to the tourism is that at the top the famous Powell-Hyde trolley stops at

the very top of the hill waiting for its open doors to eventually boil over with passengers as it readies for a speedy roll down toward Broadway.  As you stand in the moment of the Lombard destination,

what comes to mind is the tolerance of the householders to either side, as they share daily their short but memorable strip of city history.