Running tour · San Francisco

Bay to Bridge

5.8 mi run

Open in Stride Stories

The stories on this route

1. The Ferry Building

   Look up at the clock tower at the foot of Market Street: 245 feet tall, four dials, each 22 feet across. Architect A. Page Brown designed this building, and when it opened, it was the biggest project the city had ever taken on.

2. Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill

   Look up at the hilltop: the pale column of Coit Tower, 180 feet tall. It's named for Lillie Hitchcock Coit, and she's the story.

3. The Pier 39 sea lions

   Listen before you look: barking and roaring. Out on the floating docks of Pier 39 are California sea lions. The big dark ones with a bump on the forehead are the males. They can be almost 8 feet long and over 600 pounds.

4. Alcatraz from the wharf

   Look out at Alcatraz, about a mile and a quarter offshore. That long building along the top is the cellhouse.

5. Aquatic Park

   Look at the Bathhouse: white, rounded, with porthole windows and stacked decks. Architect William Mooser III designed it to look like a ship at port.

6. Fort Mason

   Look at the long red-roofed piers and warehouses by the water. This is Lower Fort Mason.

7. The Palace of Fine Arts

   Look across the lagoon at the domed rotunda, between its two curving colonnades. It was meant to look like a ruin from the very start.

8. Crissy Field

   Look across the wide grass. Before it was a park, this was an airfield. And before that, it was marsh.

9. The Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point

   Look up. The steel arch above Fort Point's brick walls carries the bridge right over the fort. That arch is there on purpose.

Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source