A wander around downtown San Francisco, Lombard Street (the world's crookedest street) and Fisherman's Wharf...
Walking around the waterfront we couldn't help but notice a foul smell. Then we turned the corner and discovered where it was coming from -- dozens of belching sea lions...
We also visited nearby Lombard St, best known for its one-way section of road which has eight sharp turns that have won the street the title of the crookedest (most winding) street in the world.
The title is hotly contested: Vermont St, also in San Fran, has seven turns instead of eight, but its hill is steeper than Lombard's. Meanwhile Snake Alley in Burlington, Iowa, was once recognised by Ripley's Believe It or Not! as ``The Crookedest Street in the World".
Lombard was designed in 1922 and the multiple turns aimed to reduce the hill's natural 27% gradient which was too steep for most vehicles to climb. It was also a serious hazard to pedestrians, who are accustomed to a more reasonable sixteen-degree incline.
The crooked section of the street, which is about 400m long, is reserved for one-way traffic traveling downhill -- the speed limit is a mere 5mph (8 km/h).
The road is so popular with tourists and locals that in 1999 a Crooked Street Taskforce was created to try and solve traffic problems in the neighborhoods around the winding section of Lombard Street.
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