A few weeks ago, a friend offered us tickets to see the Fleet Foxes at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater.

Berkeley Day Trip!

This was the perfect excuse to delve into the hidden Berkeley pathway system, carved between houses and down hillsides at the turn of the century in order to provide residents with easier access to the trolley lines on Euclid Ave. Berkeley already had a mystical reputation to uphold, and this hike cemented it.  It also turned out to be on of the most beautiful urban neighborhoods I’ve ever seen, a world away from the busy streets of downtown Berkeley.

Strap in for a day of roaming vine-shrouded secret pathways, followed by a downright spiritual experience listening to the Fleet Foxes at the Greek Theater.  This day trip is just the antidote to our hectic, modern world.

Peace and love, y’all.

On Foot: Hiking the Berkeley Hills and an evening at the Greek Theater

Recommended Itinerary (7 hiking miles, 6 hours):

1. Take BART to Downtown Berkeley
2. A pit stop at Thornburg Village, aka Normandy Village
3. Ascend the Berkeley Pathways to Hill Road
4. Descend back into Civilization
5. Dinner at The Original
6. A concert at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater

 

What you’ll need to bring:

1. Proper hiking shoes
2. Concert tickets (if you’re doing the whole day trip)
3. A backpack
4. A blanket, for the Greek Theater lawn seats.
5. Reservations at a Berkeley restaurant, if you’re opting out of The Original
6. Clothes for a chilly evening
7. A print out of the Berkeley Hills Hike Google Map

 

1. Take BART to Downtown Berkeley

Berkeley is incredibly, conveniently located along the BART line.  It’s one of the easiest neighborhoods to get to outside of San Francisco (and, who are we kidding, even easier to get to than some of the neighborhoods in San Francisco – sorry, MUNI.)  See how to ride BART.

From San Francisco, you’ll want to hop on the Richmond line.  If you’re traveling on a weekend, you’ll have to get on the Pittsburg/Bay Point line and transfer to the Richmond line at MacArthur Station (BART does not run the Richmond line through SF on the weekends.  BART makes it a very easy transfer so fear not.  The transfer at MacArthur just involves walking 10ft across the platform to a usually-waiting Richmond bound train.)

You’ll pop up right in the middle of the UC Berkeley campus’ college town – Shattuck Street – surrounded by bookshops, coffee shops, bars, and oodles of stressed out looking students.  I recommend grabbing a cup of coffee before setting out on your urban hike.

Click here for a Google map of our Berkeley Hike trailmarkers for each of the (semi-secret) pathways.  This hike will be nearly impossible to do without a map.  Throughout this post, I’ll link to the wonderful Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, where you’ll find more history and information about the paths.

 

 

2. A pit stop at Thornburg Village, aka Normandy Village

Before getting on with our Berkeley Pathways, I wanted to check out Thornburg Village (aka Normandy Village) on Spruce Street.  It’s basically the first scene of Beauty and the Beast – stubby houses with mushroom-capped, thatched roofs.  Pointed medieval archways and curved brick stairwells.  The developer, Jack Thornburg, was probably going for a blend of architectural accuracy and whimsy back in 1925.  Today, it’s mostly odd and perhaps a little bit creepy in a reverse Rip Van Winklesh kind of way.

 

 

 

Berkeley: elves live here.

The first path of the day is Hawthorne Terrace, just a couple blocks north on Spruce, east on Vine, then north on Scenic Ave.  We were a bit giggly, checking our map obsessively to make sure we weren’t headed up someone’s driveway.  A lot of “Is this it?” “Is THIS it?” “Did we pass it?” “Wait, I think it’s just up ahead…” “Is THAT it?” A heads up for you: Hawthorne Terrace is a stairway.  Go ahead and climb up.

 

 

 

3. Head up the Berkeley Pathways to Hill Road

The first pathways are heady.  First, they are narrow – whether flat or staired, and shrouded in a canopy of overgrown foliage.  The last thing you expect to find is a doorway.  Or, as we found, dozens of doorways to adorable houses.  Is this their front door?  They must at least have a driveway, yeah?  Dave was a little mortified as I peered around them, trying to figure out whether there was a back alley.  I very nearly knocked on their doors to figure out the logistics of their lives and Costco purchases.

Second, they are shockingly, rustically beautiful.  This can be downright confusing if you’re from Philadelphia.  This is too gorgeous to be natural.  Who pays for this?  Does the city have a gardening team?  This doesn’t make any sense.

 

 

 

After Hawthorne Terrace, head to Rose Walk.  Rose Walk is part of a planned community – with a plaque explaining its heritage. Bungalows and rose bushes line the gently sloping walk, and locals are out walking dogs and resting on benches.

From Rose Walk, climb up along Tamalpais Road to the Tamalpais Path.  I believe Tamalpais Road was when I started wondering who in the world lives here?  The geography and architecture and climate is dreamlike – a very steep hillside facing a canyon of redwoods overlooking San Francisco Bay, dotted with colorful wood framed mansions on stories-high stilts, as dense fog morphs and drifts upwards and through you.  I had no idea Berkeley looked like this.

 

 

 

A Volvo station wagon pulled into a driveway to our left, releasing a little girl in a red dress and bright stockings.  She danced across the wooden pedestrian bridge connecting her driveway to her cedar-shingled home.  Does she realize how magical her life is?  She lives in Tangled.  When do the kids who grow up here realize they grew up somewhere totally ridiculous?  Is it hard to live anywhere else once you’ve grown up here?

 

 

 

Tamalpais Path is also ridiculous.  (Ridiculous was the word of the day. I don’t mean it as a pejorative.  I just don’t know how else to express my shock/amazement/awe.)  It is a steep stairwell, wood then concrete, winding down into a redwood canyon.  At the bottom are more secret houses, more pedestrian bridges over little brooks, with a secluded public playground.  Truly a community and neighborhood built before cars.  It is a whole world hidden and tucked away.

 

 

 

Emerge onto Euclid Ave and walk uphill to Redwood Terrace.  From now on, there are numerous pathways per block, so don’t get too worried about finding the right one.

Our hike became increasingly foggy as we climbed higher and higher.  At Redwood Terrace and then Upper Covert Pass, the fog condensed as it hit the redwoods, showering us in a sweet, woodsy drizzle.

 

 

 

You’ll have the hang of finding and climbing paths by now.  Climb climb climb. Gasp gasp gasp. The pathways are only more and more stunning as you go, so no one will complain if you need to stop and gasp for air smell the flowers on your way up.

 

 

 

Next up are Whitaker Path, then Stevenson Path, and Stoddard Path.  I had the creeping feeling that we were in an episode of Twin Peaks. I’m not sure if it was the lack of oxygen or the ominous conditions, but I wouldn’t have been surprised at all had an elf wandered out from behind a tree.  Rather than an elf, though, I suddenly heard a dog stampeding towards me, barking bloody murder.  I swiveled around, trying to guess which direction it was coming from.  Have y’all ever had to do that? It’s super.  The dog retreated, and I resorted to sputtering a lot of “what in the DARN HELL is going on here?”

 

 

 

From Grizzly Peak Rd, walk a half block up to Hill Rd and take a right.  There’s a sign on Hill Rd that says “No Outlet,” but that’s for motorists.  There’s a pathway at the end of the road.

 

 

 

4. Descend back into Civilization

From Hill Rd, take the Atlas Path, then down Arcade Ave to the Lower Glendale Path.  The Lower Glendale Path continues across Fairlawn Drive.  The descent will be much more relaxing than the ascent, and you’re likely to walk down, facing the sunset over San Francisco Bay.  On our foggy day, the bay was ablaze in silver.

Take Glendale Ave to La Loma Ave to the La Loma Steps.  The La Loma Steps are fancier than anything you’ve seen in a while, paved in bricks with ceramic artwork and a bench.  Continue on down Le Roy Ave to Hill Ct.  After Hill Ct, you are back on Euclid and mere blocks from Campus.

 

 

 

From Euclid, you can walk through Berkeley’s campus to Shattuck Ave, on your way to dinner.  The Cal campus is a wonderful example of California-infused Beaux Art architecture.  The neoclassical columns are there, as well as the toga’d friezes.  The roof, though, is Spanish tile lined in oxidized copper scroll-work.

 

 

5. Dinner at The Original

I had originally planned for us to go to, and for me to recommend to you, Angeline’s Louisiana Kitchen.  There are not many food groups Dave and I like more than Cajun – I even did a Julie/Julia Project with Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen.

But then we stood in line.  And then we were told it’d be a 45 minute wait.  We both looked across the street, looked at each other, and bolted over to The Original.

 

 

 

Maybe formerly a Mel’s Original, it has the clichéd look of a retro diner, with red glittery vinyl booths and randomly placed, faux antiqued Coca Cola signs.  And yet, we were both in diner nirvana as we ordered our tuna melt, BLT, and ice cream floats.  Sometimes you want classically prepared gumbo and etouffee…and sometimes, after you’ve just hiked 6 miles through the most ridiculous and unbelievable terrain, you just want a cheese melt and steak fries.  As someone who grew up in diners, this food was at the top of its game. The tuna melt was perfectly golden and buttery.  The steak fries, so hard to find here in San Francisco, still sizzled when they came out.  My orange sherbert milkshake–I don’t know, it was perfect in that moment–it was so refreshing, and SO GOOD.  Our server was really friendly and attentive, and I got the feeling he got a kick out of our excitement.

If you aren’t enthused by a greasy spoon, go on and check out Angeline’s and let us know how it is.  If you’re vegetarian and like more options than a standard grilled cheese, there’s Saturn Cafe, a vegetarian diner one block over on Oxford Rd.

 

 

 

6. A Concert at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater

After dinner, waddle yourself back through campus, now all cast in a nighttime glow.  Walk past the clock tower towards the Greek Theater.  It’s nearly impossible to get lost, since packs of students will be leading the way.

The Greek Theater, true to name, is an outdoor amphitheater built into a hillside.  There’s a standing room only section close to the stage.  Reserved “seats” are just built-in concrete benches.  Our tickets were for the grass seating area.

I mostly expected this to be a slightly inclined grass field, like Wolf Trap or The Mann Center.  I had visions of us lounging on our blanket, under a starry night sky.  Nope, it’s a hill pitched at a roughly 80 degree angle – so steep you worry about tumbling down head first.  (Particularly if your knees are achy from an urban hike prior in the day. Because you are old.)

The grass seats provide a great view of the stage, Berkeley clock tower, and city lights beyond.  It is gorgeous.

The Fleet Foxes, a 6 piece band out of Seattle, came out nearly embarrassed and in disbelief that they were actually playing the Greek Theater.  They bounced right into a song of soaring melodies and harmonies, filling the amphitheater in a sonic boom of mandolins, peace, and love.  The college students swayed, silent and rapt.  We may have inadvertently crashed a hippy-folk revival.

We snuggled in for the show, a residue of mild euphoria left over from our Twin Peaks experience keeping us warm.  We left a few hours later with flowers in our hair, back home to San Francisco.