North Beach - The Italian Quarter

San Francisco library organise a series of walks run by volunteers, giving visiters an insight to the areas of interest around the City. Walking tours

We joined a group to learn about North Beach. This area was populated by the Italians and has the Italian flag on every lamp post. We liked this area very much, not only for the lovely smells of italian cooking, but for the architecture and quaint little shops still in use today.

Joe DiMaggio came from this neighbourhood.

There are loads of very popular cafes and restaurants, this one had a queue around the corner waiting for seats.

North Beach was actually a beach until the late 1900's when landfill extended the area to where it is today.

The style of house in this area is predominantly the bay window type. Shops are very European with the shop front on the ground floor and the living accommodation above.

This is the first paperback bookshop opened in the USA.

We also witnessed a Green Street Mortuary band procession. click here to see them in action. This

was an actual funeral procession, and are aparently quite rare, we saw 3 on the same day!

For our dinner we went to The Loving Hut a vegan restaurant. We each ordered something different from the menu and tried each

On the evening we went to see Beach blanket babylon

This was a really good show, with lots of flamboyant costumes and huge hats. We were able to sing along to the songs, and audience participation was encouraged.

After tearing Sally away from Condor, we went home on the bus. Another great day.