San Francisco After Dark

This city burned down, shook apart, filled its own bay with abandoned ships and built streets on top of them, then moved its entire population of dead people to a different town. None of that is folklore. It is all documented in official records.

Which is the useful thing about going out here after dark. You do not have to believe anything. The strangeness is administrative.

Take the last sailing that will have you. The point is not the cells — it is standing on a decommissioned exercise yard looking back at a city a mile and a half away and completely unreachable.

Two options, same walk, different narration. Take the film one. Vertigo used this city as a set in 1958 and a surprising number of the frames are still standing, unaltered, with people living in them.

The oldest Chinatown in North America, which survived an earthquake, a fire and a serious attempt by city officials to relocate it wholesale.

The walks worth the money are run by people from the neighbourhood. Check who is actually guiding before you book.

Do this the following morning. It belongs here because it explains the rest.

In 1900 the city banned new burials. In 1912 it began evicting the cemeteries it already had. The bodies went ten miles south. Living population there: about fifteen hundred. The other population: over a million.

The fog is a weather system, not a mood — often ten degrees colder than the daytime forecast, with nothing between you and the Pacific.

Steep hills are the other challenge. Read the accessibility details before booking rather than assuming.

Anything on the water leaves at a fixed time and will not wait. The last return is the last return.