San Francisco

The colour is a red-orange that began as a primer coat and simply stayed. Only the east walkway takes people on foot, and it opens in daylight hours. Salt wind keeps stripping the paint, so crews go back over the bare patches year after year.

The car has no engine; a grip reaches through the slot and clamps a steel rope that runs under the street. What you hear when it halts on a hill is the grip letting go, not a brake. At each end a turntable waits and staff push the car round by hand.

One operator runs the boat and seats go weeks ahead, so turning up to buy on the day is too late. The prison shut in 1963. From 1969 Native American occupiers held the island for nineteen months, and some of what they painted on the walls is still legible.

After the 1989 earthquake sea lions took over the marina's floating docks and never gave them back. Numbers swell in winter; in summer they follow the fish out and the docks can sit empty.

This is the oldest Chinese quarter in North America. After the 1906 earthquake burned it out, the rebuild deliberately exaggerated eaves and columns, on the calculation that tourists would come. The shops locals use sit a block off Grant Avenue.

Both walls of a one-block back lane in the Mission are painted end to end. Nothing is preserved: every few years the panels are covered and repainted, so last year's photographs no longer match the wall.

Pick a day with a big low tide. On those days iron from wrecked ships shows between the rocks under the cliff. The path traces the cliff at the city's north-west corner, and at its end the concrete frame of a seawater bathing pool is the only thing left.

The eight switchbacks on one block came from a 1922 job meant to ease the gradient. Cars may only go down, never up, and in summer the queue waiting for that single block backs up over the crest of the hill.

The site was dunes blowing off the ocean. Trees went in first to hold it down, and a hundred and fifty years of growth became this wood. Two Dutch windmills at the west end were raised to pump groundwater. A fenced paddock in the south-west keeps a few bison.

Through the 1970s gay residents concentrated here and made the district a political base. The big crossing on Castro Street has its crosswalks painted in rainbow bands. A plaque now marks the camera store Harvey Milk ran his campaigns from.

It is the sole survivor of the buildings raised for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Built of temporary plaster, it was crumbling until rebuilt in concrete in the 1960s. Swans and ducks float on the lagoon below the dome, and it is free to walk around.

The clock tower of the 1898 ferry terminal stands at the foot of Market Street. The long hall inside holds oyster bars, bakeries and cheesemongers. Farm stalls fill the plaza outside each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning; Saturday's is biggest.

Built on top of Telegraph Hill in 1933. Depression-era murals of working life by more than two dozen painters wrap the ground floor, free to see without the lift ticket. On the stairways down the hill, flocks of wild parrots screech past.

Two summits rise from the heart of San Francisco, with Market Street running straight from your feet to the bay. Wind is strong and fog frequent; many days the top shows nothing at all. You can drive right up to the summit car park, so no walking is needed.

About 40 minutes north across the Golden Gate Bridge lies this redwood grove. Most of the trees are centuries old, and little sun reaches the forest floor. Entry needs booking ahead: a parking spot if you drive, a seat if you take the shuttle.

A row of seven Victorian wooden houses lines Steiner Street along the eastern edge of Alamo Square. From the park's sloping lawn the downtown towers stack up behind them. People live in them, so stay off the front steps when taking photos.

A hands-on science museum on Pier 15 where you learn by touching and turning things. The Tactile Dome is pitch-black and crossed by crawling and feeling your way, booked separately. Thursday evenings are an adults-only opening for those 18 and over.

A hillside town across the bay, with a waterside neighbourhood of hundreds of houseboats, no two alike. Many people cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge and down into town, then load the bikes onto a ferry back to the Ferry Building.

A Pier 45 shed holds hundreds of old coin-operated arcade machines, and entry costs nothing. Laughing Sal, the giant figure by the door, rocks and cackles when fed a coin. Most of the machines still run on coins.