Travelog # 1 - Lombard Street

I am starting a new travelog series with Lombard Street. In this series, I am planning to share travel experiences from places visited over the years. My intent is to post one per post per week on this subject...

Lombard Street
Lombard Street is considered the crookedest street in San Francisco, USA and is a tourist attraction in itself. People from all over throng this area and drive through the street for the experience of it. One has to climb through 3 blocks of steep hill before driving down a steep descent.

I utterly failed in my initial attempts to driver through Lombard Street with a stick shift car. I lacked the confidence and skill to juggle clutch, gas and break while driving uphill. This resulted in my vehicle going backward instead of forward.

Even after switching to an automatic car, I wasn't successful in my first attempt. I was driving with a boat load of people in the van and had to quit after the 2 blocks of steep hill. Then one my colleague taught me the trick of using both legs to drive uphill in an automatic car and that did the trick. Once I knew how to maneuver gas & break with both legs simultaneously, I in fact became an expert in traversing through Lombard Street and drove several of my friends and family through.

Here are some pictures I took in April 2003


The crookedest street in San Francisco


Steep descent


Crawl down Lombard at 5 mph


partial view of the Bay Bridge from Lombard


Cable Car near Lombard

More photos in flickr