Union Square

Well-dressed worker bees take breathers on tiered concrete while tourists snap pictures of century-old architecture as cable cars ding-a-ling through it all. The wide array of shopping in this district is world-class, with the accessible, the high-end, and unabashedly touristy hole-in-the-walls mingling as effortlessly as those who patronize this hub. With so much action, it’s easy to miss the petite pedestrian alley tucked into the square’s eastern side. Here, Maiden Lane harbors a dozen or so designer boutiques and also boasts the city’s only Frank Lloyd Wright building, which now houses one of the neighborhood’s many galleries. When you’re ready to leave, you can’t make a more San Franciscan exit than taking that cable car on Powell.