Detour to days of yore, when this neighborhood was a sleepy seaside village – before lumber barons arrived with bombastic Victorian fanfare. Serene clapboard cottages that once housed Japanese fisherfolk line a brick-paved pedestrian promenade, where plum trees and bonsai take center stage. Homes are private, but the central Zen mini-park is perfect for sushi picnics. Cottage Row is off Sutter St, between Webster and Fillmore Sts.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
2.92 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
1.43 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
1.49 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
1.6 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1.72 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
1.82 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
3.05 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
1.87 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby Japantown, Fillmore & Pacific Heights attractions
0.14 MILES
During drought years you'll have to imagine how they look with water flowing, but even without they're a sight to behold. Celebrated sculptor and former…
0.16 MILES
Time-travel to 1968 as you cross Japan Center's indoor wooden bridges, with noren (curtains) and maneki-neko (cat figurines) waving welcomes from…
0.17 MILES
The spiritual center of Japantown's commercial district is minimalist master Yoshiro Taniguchi's Peace Pagoda. It was donated by San Francisco's sister…
0.21 MILES
Inside this low-roofed, high-modernist church a blond-wood sanctuary welcomes all faiths. Kindly Reverend Joanne Tolosa will answer questions about…
5. Fillmore Center Waterfall & Plaza
0.33 MILES
This patch of green flanked by apartment towers is open to the public and a welcome break from Fillmore sidewalks. Walk past the fountain at O'Farrell…
0.62 MILES
If these red-velvet parlor walls could talk this 1886 Queen Anne–style Victorian could tell you about earthquakes, booms, busts and untimely deaths. This…
0.74 MILES
Hippie communes and Victorian bordellos, jazz greats and opera stars, earthquakes and Church of Satan services: these genteel 'Painted Lady' Victorian…
8. Church of St Mary the Virgin
0.75 MILES
You'd expect to see this rustic Arts and Crafts–style building on the slopes of Tahoe, not Pacific Heights, but this Episcopal church is full of surprises…