Bernal Heights, San Francisco

10 January 2009

This is a guest entry!



As you have probably noticed in reading this blog, the blogger, (i.e., Bill) loves to ramble about — and in — mostly natural settings, you know, nature. I love nature too, but we happen to live just 20 minutes from a truly fascinating city. When I suggest some walking outings across the Bay to discover what tourists come thousands, yes, tens of thousands of miles to visit, the response ranges from EXTREME reluctance to a litany of reasons why we should hike/walk on this side of the Bay and leave urbanity to the urbanites. He doesn’t want the traffic, crowds, messiness and jostle of a densely packed city. I could never really argue the point until I found the book Stairway Walks in San Francisco by Adah Bakalinsky and Bill rediscovered his love of photography.



Truly, with this book one can discover that San Francisco is oh-so-much-more than crowded double-parked streets, pavement and concrete. The book takes you well beyond what the tourists see and deep into where the locals live and why they love it here. San Francisco is made up of dozens of individual neighborhoods built upon 42 hills with houses and streets at such a wonderful human scale that walking is truly the only way to discover the charm and intricacies of the pocket parks, community gardens, public art, mosaic murals, charming coffee houses, bookstores, and views worth two million bucks. Stairways are the way neighbors meet each other, get together to plant and beautify the common areas, and reach that amazing park with the playground, the tiny little-league diamond, views to the Pacific, the Financial District, the East Bay and beyond. On one of the SF staircase walks is where we began today’s outing.

Holly Park, in the neighborhood known as Bernal Heights West, was the starting point for our hike today and in the 5-mile loop we climbed up two major hills and walked up or down probably ten different stairways. We enjoyed amazing views, beautiful cypress trees, playgrounds, lots of nature, quirky and charming houses, tiny terraced community gardens, and streets that met at anything but 90-degree angles. Lots of people out walking, lots of friendly greetings and short conversations, lots of dogs, kids, and at the end, a delicious brunch at a neighborhood coffee-house bakery. You don’t get amazing espresso, scones and veggie scramble on Mount Diablo, do you Bill? HUH!