Lombard Street, San Francisco

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Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with pockets of restaurants and shops, is the start of the most famous part of Lombard Street, formerly the world most crooked street (Burlington's Snake Alley in Iowa is now it). But still is a favorite of mine

Lombard Street is best known for one block on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, in which the roadway has eight sharp turns (or switchbacks) that have earned the street the distinction of being "the former crookedest [most winding] street in the United States." (Vermont St. between 20th St and 22nd St near the San Francisco General Hospital may be steeper, but has only seven turns, and is in a much less picturesque location.) The Powell-Hyde cable car line stops at the top of this block.

The crooked section of the street is reserved for one-way traffic traveling east (downhill), and is paved with bricks. The section was built in 1923 to accommodate the steepness of the slope

Known as "The Crookedest Street" Lombard Street is CRAZY.

The best way to view this is to get the trolly (Hyde) and get off at the top and walk down either side via the steps. This will let you see peoples houses, and small frontways, also the flowers, together with a fantastic view over the city from high up

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Tourists abound on Lombard St., the crookedest street in the world, but can you blame them? Not only is the street itself special but also the magnificent views of San Francisco and the Bay from the top of the street.
Lombard St. has understandably a slow speed limit, speeding down would be suicide and one would most likely end up crashing through one of the houses located on the street. You could probably walk up Lombard faster than you could driving down it.
I figure the people that live on Lombard must pay a pretty penny for their homes. Imagine waking up everyday and looking out your window at not only the beautiful street but at the million dollar view of San Francisco. Spectacular!
Leavenworth St. is your best option for taking some nice pics of Lombard St. and the parade of cars coming down. We arrived in San Francisco in December and missed out on the beautiful flowers which line the street but the greenery was still very pretty with well trimmed bushes and trees.
I suggest arriving by the Hyde-Powell cable car. The cable car will let you off in front of Lombard St. at the top. Enjoy the views from here and then walk down to Leavenworth St. and enjoy Lombard St.

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San Francisco is well known around the world for its vertigo inducing streets, as depicted in the bumper scratching and exhaust breaking scenes in famous films like "Bullitt".

It also has what can be described as one of the crookedest streets in the world in “Lombard Street”.

The road has EIGHT switchbacks. It certainly is a hit with the tourist drivers, as it was busy when we were there. I don't suppose you would actually drive down the street other than as part of your tourist day.

The road has a five mile an hour speed restriction and no taxis are allowed.

You get a great view of the street from the bottom at Leavenworth Street, although you can get a good shot from the base of Coit Tower if you have a reasonable zoom on your camera.

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There are two jokes in Portugal about the size of things in the USA:
One says that in the USA everything is so big that even the small things are big.

The other says that the streets are so large that even to cross them we have to take the car. Can you imagine why did Lombard street remind me those jokes?

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again a clarification, lombard street is not the crookedest street in san francisco but it sure as hell is the most touristy of them all! tour buses cannot go into it for the obvious reasons that the raod is narrow that only cars and suv's are allowed so if you want to experience going through it, you must have a car or ride in one to be able to experience it. being in front of it with the videos and the pictures are simply not enough! while here in the city, you must ask a friend to ride you through it but if you are tourists, then just get a rental car but be careful due to the steep gradients of the roads around the city!

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Lombard Street (in the Russian Hill district) is the crookedest street, not only in San Francisco but in the whole of America. This steep street was created in the 1920s with eight sharp curves (or switchbacks) to enable vehicles to travel down the one-way, 40-degree hill. The street, which is paved with bricks, is an amazing sight and seems constantly busy with traffic throughout the day.

Some of the most expensive properties in San Francisco exist on Lombard Street, even with its seemingly endless traffic of tourists. During Spring and Summer, Lombard Street comes alive with colour from all the flowers in bloom.

The best place to photograph Lombard Street is from Leavenworth Street, at the bottom of the hill looking up. You will see cars heading down very slowly, whilst tourists walk up and down the sides.

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This is by far the crookedest street in the city. First we walked up the Filbert street for the Coil Tower and it was steep enough to cut our breaths away, they say Lombart street is even steeper that’s why part of it designed like this so the people wont be killed rolling down :) The crooked part of the street is located on Russian Hill.

Pic 1 shows the cars going down in really slow speed (there’s no other way), pic 2 shows Lombard street from the Coil Tower and pic 3 shows the rest of Lombard street which goes up to Telegraph Hill.

Oh my god! It was so difficult to walk up the street. Try to walk all day in a city like I did and then leave this for the end of your day, I thought I would die :)

The street houses some beautiful and extremely expensive Victorian mansions. We visited the street in October so we missed the blooming flowers that you can see in spring.