Lombard Street

While many of the city’s hills boast a straight-laced crisscross of streets, there are a few hills with roads so steep that a straight line just would not do.

Instead, these such roads look more like an anaconda slithering downhill.

The windiest of them all is the 1000 block of Lombard Street, a one-way red brick road that has 8 hairpin turns in one block.

The switchbacks were constructed back in 1922 so residents could safely drive their cars up and down the then 27 percent grade street. Once the switchbacks were in place, the grade dropped to a less vertigo-inducing 16 percent.

Nowadays, this topsy-curvy road is flanked with million dollar homes and hydrangea bushes that, when in bloom, transform the street into a picture-perfect postcard… like the kind that catapulted this quiet neighborhood into a major tourist attraction in the 1960s.

How To Go…

Lombard Street is best explored on wheels and on foot (pedestrian steps line both sides of the street).

It takes a little over one minute to drive or bike down the world’s crookedest street… barring a traffic jam. The road itself is a quarter of a mile long (400 m); and the speed limit is a fast and furious 5 mph (8 kph)!

Cable Car: Hyde St & Lombard St (Powell / Hyde line)

The best time to visit is during the off-season. The street is busiest during the summer—and by busy we are talking approximately 350 cars an hour on summer weekends.

The most scenic time to visit is when the hydrangeas are in bloom, which is usually during spring, summer and fall.