Urban hiking in Chicago isn’t happening for the Steffen’s in January. We could, but we’ve found that it’s best just to hole up in inside during the winter and recharge/recover.
So, Gail and I used a perfect Friday in January during a visit to San Francisco to take a little walking tour. It gave me an opportunity to learn Google Maps and practice how I’m going to map things when we get down to it in Chicago. Check out the map below. If you click on each marked location you’ll get comments and maybe some insight. The Chicago maps will be much more robust because I know this city.
We’d been to San Francisco before so we had a few destinations in mind but mostly wanted to get acquainted with some neighborhoods and have a bite to eat. We had planned to go longer but cut things a little short in the end. We officially went about eight miles, but this could easily be made longer or shorter because the area is so dense in sightseeing options.
Our starting point was the Fairmont Hotel in Nob Hill and we ended the day a few blocks away at a great little restaurant called Aliment. My original plan had us going to Corona Heights Park just west on 16th Street in The Castro, but we ran out of time/fuel.
Valencia Street in the Mission had a bit of everything – gritty urban hipster mixed with boutique food and retail. Hayes Street in Hayes Valley was more of the same, but smaller and residential. If I were to go back, I’d get some hill climbing in and maybe carb up at Tacolicious on Valencia and Schulzie’s Bread Pudding on Hayes.