Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
At first San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid doesn’t look that impressive.. at least until you catch sight of the massive pointed shadow extending north-east. Wow. Standing at 260 meters, it must be really something from the ground! (Official site, Wikipedia entry)
Thanks: Chuck Cheeze, Jack and Leah Brooks.
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Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.
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It’s a prominent part of the SF skyline, but it doesn’t particularly dominate it; see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%2C_California
Thanks to the wonder of Wikipedia, reading about this building led me to learn about the Solar Tower being proposed in Australia. Tall buildings are cool, if a little terrifying.
where is lombard? The twisty road from the video games?
dont no. i tryed to find it but cant. propbably cos it is so small.
Lombard Street is:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Just above-right of the tennis courts… pretty hard to make out the road, but you can just see parts of it snaking down the hill.
yeah i see it. thnx
No problem…
yeah i see it
Pretty disappointing view of it. I remember watching one of the “Herbie” movies in the 80’s and they went down the road. I thought to myself, that must be a cool road to drive down. I guess it would be better had the trees not been blocking it.
And remember: if you climb to the top, there’s a floating parachute there for base jumping. ^_^
Some say Vermont St. in SF is windier than Lombard but it’s definitely less known. Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth It’s also one of the steepest.
Also shown in the view of Lombard (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.800968,-122.419217&spn=0.007257,0.011354&t=k&hl=en), is one of the steepest (some debate as to whether in fact it is the steepest) streets in the world, Filbert between Hyde and Leavensworth. It’s said to have a 31.5% grade. I’ve also heard sections of Filbert, 22nd and Vicksburg are also just as steep in spots. I believe the technicality is they are all considered drivable. These streets are usually one way only (down hill). Less steep bi-directional streets are a real challenge when going up hill in a car with a manual transmission. Most of these streets have stairs instead of sidewalks.
Here’s a link to some pics http://www.mistersf.com/high/index.html?highsteep.htm (note the cars parked perpendicular)
The BofA building (237m) is another prominent building, just a couple of blocks away.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
shoot, wrong link
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=pine+and+kearny,+san+francisco,+ca&spn=0.007247,0.007420&t=k&hl=en
i was a little disappointed when I tooked for the transamerica pyramid on google earth, switch on the 3-d buildings — and its not much of a pyramid!