Napier Lane

San Francisco has a lot of hidden gems and 'best kept secrets'.  This includes Napier Lane, The City's only wooden street.  It's located below Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill.  You can see where it's located on this map; the street name is under the 'H' of 'Hill' 

There is only one very narrow road up to the top of Telegraph Hill, and a tiny parking lot.  The waiting time to park up there can be a long one, so often the easiest or fastest way to get up there is the grueling hike to the top by foot.  The tourists go inside the tower, take pictures of the sweeping views of The City, Bay and bridges, jump in their cars and head out.  Oddly enough, I never made it up to the top of the tower.

If the tourists had a little looksee on the back side of the hill, they'd discover the Greenwich Street steps....

The Filbert Street steps....

And the most curious street of all, Napier Lane.  I stumbled on this quite by accident when I was checking out the above staircase streets (several streets in SF turn into staircases and in the 90s I was on a quest to see as many of them as possible).

There are a lot of homes that cling to the side of the hill, and Napier Lane is a real address.  Can you imagine having to move in or out of these places?  Or just bring your groceries home?  The homes sell for close to a million dollars too.  Great views but you'd have to be in great shape to live here!!  This area is directly above the notorious Barbary Coast of 1800s San Francisco, and rumour has it that prostitutes took their clients up to these homes, where they were drugged and 'shanghaied', only to awaken late the next day on a ship far out to sea.

If you ever find yourself in San Francisco, you must check this out for yourself.