As you may know, I love the stairway walks here in San Francisco. They’re good exercise, fun to explore and many have amazing views. I also recommend the book (see the link here from Amazon) Stairway Walks of San Francisco. It’s loaded with a variety of walks, all over the city. There are 27 listed in the latest 6th edition of this fun book. Each walk has a map, nice drawings, and step-by-step directions.
The Castro walk is one of the easier ones and covers areas that take you high above the city for some great views, and also past some beautiful Victorian homes. Coming back, you’ll also see Sutro Tower, which is the tower that houses all the major radio and TV broadcast antennas for the city. I think it’s a huge eyesore, but I suppose it’s better to have one large ugly tower, rather than 5 or 6 smaller ugly ones.
At the end of your walk, you’ll end up in the Castro district, which is one of the largest gay neighborhoods in the world. If you’re not gay, don’t worry, it’s a very friendly neighborhood, loaded with restaurants and shops, and one of the most beautifully restored movie theater I’ve seen in years. For most movies, they still have an organist playing tunes before the feature film. Just before time to roll the film, he always plays the tune San Francisco, people sing along and clap, while the organ platform sinks slowly into the floor as the finale. The lights dim and an old classic or cult film begins to thrill the audience in this huge theater that was just redone on the outside, for a Sean Penn film about Harvey Milk, a true story.
