Ever since moving, just a few weeks ago, I've been wanting to take some time to make a photographic tour of my new neighborhood. But either the weather has sucked (which has been mostly the case all Spring), or I've been too busy or under the weather. On Sunday, though, everything cooperated, including the weather. In fact, the weather overplayed it's cards a little - it was the kind of day that would have generated headlines of "Phew!!! What a scorcher!" across England the next day. It being San Francisco, the headlines the next day were all about the heat, even if they didn't use the same vernacular they'd use in England.

I started in the raised plazas which spread between the complex I live in and the Embarcadero Center. They're perfectly manicured, and really nothing at all like the rest of San Francisco, since, particularly on a Sunday, there's nobody there but you and the wind. The lawns, walkways, sculptures, buildings and views offer a lot of subject matter to the camera, but ... well, it was too hot to stand around in the name of art in those empty plazas. So I just took a couple of pics.

Admiring the corporate art. Well, sort of. In one of the above-street-level plazas next door to my complex.

Strolling across one of the walkways leading to the Embarcadero Center, adopting my patented "I don't know I'm being photographed" pose.

The area I live in is just on the edge of the true Financial District. All the major banks are within a few blocks, and it's only ten minutes walk to Union Square. And yet, it's also very, very peaceful. Even on work days, you walk out of the building into tree-lined streets and you can hear the green parrots screaming in the park across the street. There are several small parks within five minutes walk; after descending from the plazas, I set off along the steaming Embaracadero, hugging the shade, heading for one of the parks.

This part of the city is known as ... well, I'm not sure what it's known as, come to think of it. It's underneath Telegraph Hill, North of the Financial District - it's a mix of businesses, parks, and residential complexes. The television stations are here, as is the corporate headquarters of Levi-Strauss. Levi have built a beautiful little park just off the Embarcadero. I'd passed it many times during my runs, but hadn't realized how cute it was until recently. It's small, but some landscape artist has sculpted a mini version of a countryside scene, with petite rolling grass-covered hillocks, a waterfall, and a little artificial stream. Ordinarily, with the tinkle of rushing water, it's a peaceful scene - this day, however, there was a massively organized wedding taking place, so I didn't stay there for long.

The park at Levis Plaza

Guy wearing a kilt, asleep in the park. I think he was supposed to be participating in the wedding, but the heat got the better of him.

From this park, you can head back South to the Financial District, or North and then around the Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf. You can't really go East, unless you want to take a swim in the Bay, but you can go West, if you're prepared to climb the steep stairs up the side of Telegraph Hill. This side of Telegraph Hill is just about the steepest hill in San Francisco - it's truly more of a cliff than a hill. And yet they built on it anyway. There are quite a few different routes up the Eastern face of Mount Telegraph (grin), and most of them run past the extravagantly fertile back yards of householders whose only means of reaching their houses are the same stairways. Talk about moving day hell, if you live here!

I've almost made it to base camp - nearing the midway point of Mount Telegraph :)

Half way up the hill, you come out onto either Montgomery Street (or is it Sansome Street - I'm afraid I forget. I'm not much of a fact-checker - hey, I don't have a staff you know :) One of my favorite buildings is on this block - a beautiful, white art-deco apartment building, with views that are ... nearly as good as mine :)

The beautiful art-deco apartment building on Montgomery Street - or is it Sansome? Half way up Telegraph Hill. Lauren Bacall lived there in the movie "Dark Passage"

Once you've reached this part of the city, in my view, you've reached the authentic San Francisco. At least it's the part of San Francisco that first formed itself in my imagination on my initial visit here over ten years ago. The quiet, hilly, residential streets of the downtown hills - Telegraph, Russian and Nob, with their secret walkways, paths, and lanes, their overgrown vegetation, and their echoing views.

One of the hundreds of small, quiet, almost hidden paths - all of which have names.

Down another hidden street, this one with a view of the Transamerica Pyramid.

With all the heat, and the walking and climbing, I decided to head back home, down the South slope of Telegraph Hill. I hadn't explored all of my neighborhood, but I guess that leaves room for a sequel. The narrow blocks that fill out the space between Telegraph Hill and the Financial District seem, to my eyes, to be the oldest business sections of the city. There are a lot of old brick buildings that seem to predate the 1906 earthquake. I really should have read a historical guide book before I wrote this journal entry.

Heading homeward, downhill back to the Financial District

One of the old brick-faced buildings that fill the quiet streets of this part of the city.

Down another quiet street, the backsides of restaurants and antique stores.

Back on my block, I sat down for an iced mocha at the Starbucks next door. It's the most peaceful Starbucks I've seen, and, apart from me, there was only an elderly couple sitting outside in the shade watching the world pass ever so slowly by. My eyelids drooping, I finished my mocha and went home and lay down on the sofa to watch another miraculous sunset.

Coit Tower (on the top of Telegraph Hill) at Sunset

Wow!