There are many things that made San Francisco famous: its unique landmarks, its friendly inhabitants, the songs about the city and the picturesque cable cars. But there is one aspect that tourists seem to ignore: its exclusive streets. Here are five of the most famous streets in this amazing city. And as a fair warning for all the tourists getting in the city: a mass transit ticket or a car is necessary before leaving your San Francisco hotels, since its fascinating streets can also be very tiring.

Belden Place

Some call it a street, others call it an alley, one thing it’s for sure – this is the hub of the French American community of San Francisco. The area was the home of the 3,000 French people that moved here at the end of the Gold Rush, in 1851. Nowadays, the street is packed with the city’s best French and Italian restaurants and cafes.  Belden Place is a pedestrian area, therefore you won’t be needing your car to explore this marvelous street.

The Castro Street

The street, as well as the district, is a well known gay neighborhood, a famous location for all the LGBT events and activism. The street originates at the Divisadero and Waller Streets intersection and its name comes from a leader of the Mexican opposition to US rule in the 19th century. A movie palace built in 1922, Castro Theater, Twin Peaks Bar – the first gay bar in San Francisco and probably in the United States and the Pink Triangle Park – are just several attractions located on this legendary street.

Grant Avenue

It’s one of the oldest streets in Chinatown that runs on a north-south direction, starting at Market Street and ending past Francisco Street. Originally called Calle de la Fundacion (Spanish for “Street of the Founding”), on the days when the city was named Yerba Buena, the street got its actual name, after the president Ulysses S. Grant, in the re-construction of the city that followed the 1906 earthquake. The street is lined with dragon entwined lamp posts and hundreds of shops with food, fabrics and furniture from China and Taiwan.

Montgomery Street

The “Wall Street of the West” was once a waterfront street of San Francisco, sometime in the 1840s. Between 1849 and 1852, the waterfront advanced four blocks. Nowadays, Montgomery Street is no less than seven blocks away from the water. Some of the world’s largest financial institutions and major American banks have their headquarters here, especially between Market Street and Sacramento Street.

Lombard Street

Dizzily hairpin turns for one block and a steep angle – that is something you’ll never see anywhere else not just in San Francisco, but in the whole world. On the Russian Hill, between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, the road has eight sharp turns that made the street “the crookedest street in the world”. The hairpins were designed to reduce the hill’s natural 27% grade, which was too steep for most vehicles to climb. On this section, the speed limit is just 5 mph (8 km/h).

Image credit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

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