San Francisco Off the Beaten Path Tips by thebeatsurrender

Bernal Heights overlooks the Mission, but on a clear day you can see much much more than that. When we went it got really foggy as we went higher. This reduced the view but added a fabulous spooky feel. As you walk along the top, there's one place where you can look out and see several teirs of landscape below: the hill below rising one way, the mission curving down beyond that, the 280 tilted up, Twin Peaks rising and Market/SoMA falling away. It's not as breathtaking as, say, Coit Tower or what have you, but I loved how it invoked that M. C. Escher picture of the stairs to nowhere, especially with the fog.

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The way down from Bernal Heights is half the fun. The top of the hill itself is pretty bare and tree-less. On the way down, you see a semi-hidden staircase winding straight down into an alcove of trees. You take the stairs and find yourself winding down a foresty staircase toward a residential area. Across the street another hidden staircase leads back down the foresty hill .. and into a -- slide! A metal children's slide built into the hill. Slide down the side of the hill and into a sandbox before descending down the stairs onto another residential street. Suddenly, you're in a quiet, clean, paved East-Coast-esque little neighborhood. Make a couple turns and a couple blocks away you find yourself back in the heart of the mission, 20 minutes and 2 worlds away.

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