20 Attractions to Explore Near Alamo Square

Along the eastern side of Alamo Square Park is one of the most iconic and most photographed sights in San Francisco. These pastel-colored homes, standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the gentle slope of Steiner Street, are called the Painted Ladies. Also known as "postcard row" for their scenic beauty, these Victorian homes are a beautiful reminder of the San Francisco of old, while the gleaming downtown skyline of new San Francisco shimmers in the distance.

The War Memorial Opera House was built as a monument to San Francisco's dead from World War I. It has been the home of the San Francisco Opera since opening night in 1932. It was the site of the San Francisco Conference, the first assembly of the newly organized the United Nations in April 1945. The artists who have performed on its stage are as legendary as the building itself. The theater hosts more than sixty performances of nine operas annually.

Children's Fairyland is America's first storybook theme park, located on the shores of Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland. It includes 10 acres of play sets, small rides, and animals. The park is also home to the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States.

Buena Vista Park is a centralized public space in San Francisco that stretches across 36 acres of land, which especially provides residents in the Haight-Ashbury and Buena Vista Heights neighborhoods with a place to enjoy the great outdoors, spend quality time with the family, stay active. The park is on a steep hill that peaks at 575 feet, and covers 37 acres. The lowest section is the north end along Haight.

The majestic seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. It is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by 42 feet.

Corona Heights Park is a craggy outcropping located along Roosevelt Way. It has some of the best views in San Francisco, but don’t overlook the wonderful wildflower display that carpets the grasslands each spring.The steps leading up to the peak are not supported by handrails. The peak of the hill is windy, but it offers an unobstructed panoramic view of the city of San Francisco from downtown to the Twin Peaks.

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco houses one of the most comprehensive Asian art collections in the world, with more than 18,000 works of art in its permanent collection, some as much as 6,000 years old.

The Randall Museum is more than just a natural history or science museum. Focusing on the cultures and environments of the San Francisco Bay Area. The museum focuses on science, nature and the arts. On exhibit are live native and domestic animals and interactive displays about nature. Other facilities include a theater, a wood shop, and art and ceramics studios.

Mission San Francisco de Asís, commonly known as Mission Dolores, is a Spanish Californian mission and the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco. This historic structure features authentic adobe architecture and construction. It's a functioning Catholic Church and one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the nation.

Swan Oyster Depot is larger than life and arguably, the best seafood restaurant in San Francisco. Swan's menu has remained largely unchanged throughout its history, and it has had exactly the same 18 wooden stools and marble counter that were installed for the post-earthquake reopening in 1912.

One of the popular city park in San Francisco, California. The park is surrounded by residential buildings of two to four stories, in various architectural styles. It offers several features including many tennis courts, a basketball court, a multi-purpose court, a soccer field, a pissoir, a children's playground, and a dog play area.

Grace Cathedral is an Episcopal church in the heart of San Francisco. This is a house of prayer for all as we are a warm, diverse and an inviting congregat.The parish, which was founded in 1849, lost its previous church building in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The cathedral is famed for its mosaics by Jan Henryk De Rosen, a replica of Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, two labyrinths, varied stained glass windows, Keith Haring AIDS Chapel altarpiece, and medieval and contemporary furnishings.

The Conservatory of Flowers is a botanical garden of rare and unusual tropical plants located in Golden Gate Park. The oldest existing wood-and-glass conservatory in North America, the Conservatory of Flowers houses nearly 2,000 species.

The Top of the Mark is a penthouse level bar located on the nineteenth floor of the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill at California and Mason Streets in San Francisco, California. Located at the highest point of downtown San Francisco, on fog-free days the Top of the Mark has views of the financial district, Chinatown, North Beach, The San Francisco Bay, and of Grace Cathedral and Huntington Park.

Union Square is a 2.6-acre public plaza bordered by Geary, Powell, Post and Stockton Streets in downtown San Francisco, California. "Union Square" also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district that surrounds the plaza for several blocks. The area got its name because it was once used for Thomas Starr King rallies and support for the Union Army during the American Civil War, earning its designation as a California Historical Landmark.

The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar is a restaurant and tiki bar in the Fairmont San Francisco hotel in San Francisco, California. Named after the South Pacific nation of Tonga, this dining and entertainment venue opened in 1945. The Tonga Room replaced the Terrace Plunge, an indoor swimming pool that was installed in the Fairmont in 1929. The pool was transformed into the Tonga Room's lagoon.

Lombard Street is an east-west street in San Francisco, California that is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns. Stretching from The Presidio east to The Embarcadero. The famous one-block section claimed to be "the most crooked street in the world", is located along the eastern segment in the Russian Hill neighborhood. It is a major tourist attraction.

The San Francisco Cable Car Museum in the Nob Hill area offers exhibits that trace the history and workings of the iconic San Francisco cable cars. The museum is part of the complex that also houses the cable car power house, which drives the cables, and the car depot.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum is a non-collecting museum at 736 Mission Street at Yerba Buena Lane in the South of Market. The museum's mission is to make the diversity of the Jewish experience relevant for a twenty-first century audience through exhibitions and educational programs. The museum has no permanent collection. It curates and hosts a broad array of exhibitions each year in collaboration with other institutions.

The Children's Creativity Museum offers hands-on, multimedia arts and technology experiences designed to build creative confidence in children ages 2-12. It offers workshops and exhibits that allow children to produce their own media through various interactive, creative processes: stop motion animation, programming robots, music video production, design challenges, art projects, and more.