Why is lombard st crooked

If you plan to walk down, the best time to arrive is early to mid-morning. This is when you won't usually have as much foot traffic. It also faces east, so this is when you will have the best sunlight on it for pictures.

Make sure you don't stand in the street when you get to the bottom. There are people driving on these streets, so make sure you stay aware of your surroundings. You would be surprised at the number of people that stand in the middle of the street and not allow cars to pass through.

If you want to learn more about this famous attraction, there are several tours offered that include a visit in their itinerary. Here are a few top options. This tour includes stops all around the city. These buses drop you off at Lombard St San Francisco. This stop is about five blocks away from this attraction. The 2-day is the most popular Hop On Hop Off tour which includes 48 hours of access to these buses.

The tours run from 9am to 5pm daily with buses every 15 to 20 minutes. This gives you plenty of time to check out top stops and learn more about them as you cruise around SF. If you want to get your heart pumping, then check out this Urban Hike. This 3-hour hike is strenuous and best for those that love to climb steep steps and hills. As you hike, your knowledgeable guide will tell you all about the hidden treasures around you and these top attractions.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy this bus tour of San Francisco. During this two-hour tour, you will learn all about SF's history and our top attractions. This small-group tour is in a 70's-era VW bus. This tour allows you to experience Lombard Street in this funky, van. You'll get to take pictures as someone else drives! Since it's a smaller tour van, you will get to drive along streets where larger tour buses are not allowed.

A fun way to get over to the crooked, zig zag Lombard Street is by taking a cable car. You can then explore it and hop back on to head to your next adventure. They don't offer transfers, so you will have to pay if you hop off here and decide to hop back on to make your way along the route. In addition to taking the cable car, you can also walk. It's pretty easy, though it's a full block down. Walking up would be great exercise, which is probably why most visitors start at the top!

Walking down gives you plenty of time to check out the street and houses, and to admire the view, which is very nice. Photography is a lot easier, too. Real World San Francisco. The Haunted Montandon House. One of San Francisco's most famous haunted houses is sitting right on the curves of Lombard Street. The apartment building at Lombard belonged to well-known socialite of the 's Pat Montandon.

In addition to being a famous party hostess and having her own local talk show, she later became known for her work with children's charities. After being cursed by a tarot card reader at one of the parties, her home on Lombard became notorious for a series of tragic deaths, as well as numerous reported supernatural manifestations.

It eventually became unlivable, and after a ghostly woman kept showing up in photographs taken inside the house, Pat arranged for an exorcism, after which things apparently settled down. See an interesting article about the hauntings. Pat herself wrote a book about it, called The Intruders. The building is obscured by trees on Lombard; there's a better view from Leavenworth Street at the bottom of Lombard, on the right looking up.

The House in Hitchcock's Vertigo. Just below the crooked block is the house Alfred Hitchcock used as Scottie's home in the film Vertigo. Both the exterior and interior of Lombard were used in the film, though the current owners changed the outside appearance in , building a wall around the front to avoid the tourists, they said. SF Movie Location Tour. Also, there's a very popular movie tour that drives you around to 55 or so locations in San Francisco that appear in some well-known films and TV shows Vertigo, San Andreas, Mrs.

Doubtfire, Full House, etc. They swing by Lombard Street on the tour, and show clips from the films on the bus. Doubles as a good city tour. The "crookedest street in the world" is actually Vermont Street , in the Potrero Hill neighborhood on the other side of town. This neighborhood has more than its share of steep streets, but it's off the beaten track for visitors to San Francisco.

Three of the streets here rival the better known Filbert Street for extreme grades. Vermont, between 20th and 22nd Streets, was one of those steep ones until 7 curves were added, with tighter turns than Lombard's Vermont Street surpasses Lombard in sinuosity, one measure of curvature. Vermont Street is tucked away in a pleasant older neighborhood of pretty Victorians and great city views. The trees and shrubbery have grown up around it, so it's harder to get the full view of the whole curve sequence.

Vermont Street's other claim to fame is its weird and light-hearted annual event, the Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race , where people mostly adults race plastic Big Wheel tricycles down the winding road.

Held Easter Sunday at p. Draws a big crowd of locals. Another contender for crookedest street in the world is Snake Alley, in Burlington, Iowa. It has 7 turns and is curvier than Lombard, but I don't know where it stands vs. Vermont Street. San Francisco has much steeper streets than that.

The reigning steepest streets in the city had long been Filbert Street between Leavenworth and Hyde and 22nd Street between Church and Vicksburg , both at a I've driven down both of these guys and it's a bit of a white knuckle experience. There's that moment when you feel like your car is driving off a cliff and can't see the street in front of you. Quite a thrill! And safe in most cars with good brakes. Both are one-way, down only.

An intrepid local explorer, Stephen Van Worley, went out and hunted down, drove and measured the candidates for steepest San Francisco streets and found seven more that tied or beat the grade of Filbert and 22nd Streets.

Check out the amusing account of his search at steepest SF streets. Worse than driving down those black diamond runs? Driving up one of those and having to stop at the top, especially with another car attached to your bumper! I used to drive a manual shift car around the city; that was always good for an adrenaline rush For a stimulating challenge, try the two blocks of Jones Street between Filbert and Union, in Russian Hill: two nice stop signs to practice on!

Going up Gough and stopping at Washington is always fun, too; the steady traffic enhances the experience. The cable car stops there, at Hyde and Lombard, and you can get off at the top of the street for great views of the city, Coit Tower and the Bay Bridge, then walk down. To see my tips on riding the cable cars, especially on how to avoid the lines getting on, see my cable car guide. San Francisco's handy Muni trip planner can show you the routes and buses available; you just plug in the start and stop points.

See SF Bay. Tip: parking is tough in this area, in addition to the annoying car break-in problems. One solution is to use the parking app Spot Hero to reserve parking spaces at a garage or lot a few blocks away, closer to Fisherman's Wharf.

The parking app Spot Angels can give you information on street parking possibilities in the area, as well as garage and lot info. One of the stops on the city tour is about three blocks away.

If you don't mind walking about five blocks, you can easily get to Lombard Street from Fisherman's Wharf. Best way: take Leavenworth Street to Lombard, which avoids the series of very steep hills on Hyde Street that take up you to the top of Lombard.

There are some hills on Leavenworth, too, but they're mild compared to Hyde. There's just no avoiding the hills in this area. Leavenworth takes you to the bottom of the curvy section of Lombard. You can pick it up in Fisherman's Wharf on Jefferson or Beach Streets, towards the end of the wharf near the cable car turnaround and Hyde Street Pier.

If you walk to the bottom of Lombard Street, you'll be in walking distance to North Beach 5 blocks and Fisherman's Wharf 4 blocks. To get to Fisherman's Wharf, go left on Leavenworth Street. You can go early in the morning or during blue hour in the evening to take advantage of softer lighting and potentially fewer tourists in your photos. Usually, one side is usually at least partially shaded thanks to those tall houses.

Shoot east as the sun crests the horizon — shown in the photo above — to capture the city in a soft golden hue. Lombard Street is actually a lot longer than just the single block of photo fame.

It stretches all the way from Coit Tower on the east to the Presidio on the west, running mostly parallel to the San Francisco Bay. On your way back to the car, make a quick detour for some chocolate treats at Ghirardelli Square. One line stops by the top of Lombard Street, and another a few blocks away from the bottom. The Hyde Street line will drop you off at the top, at the corner of Lombard and Hyde. Just a few streets over, the Powell-Mason line stops at Lombard and Columbus.

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