First Ten Walks: A Review

A Review

Saturday, 25 August 2012

The exercise is good. It’s also great to be out in areas we’ve been at before and to see new things. The book’s a hit.

We got lost a few times, and we also saw a couple on Walk #3 who were lost. It takes time to work through the directions, and the maps in places are not easy to follow. Still, Charles Fleming did a great job with the book. No significant complaints.

But an observation! Mr Fleming often begins a chapter talking about eating before going out on a staircase walk. We do the opposite—we have lunch after a walk. That seems like a better practice.

We also saw that we take for granted some things that the author, who lives in Los Angeles, finds interesting. Redwood houses, houses with turrets, creeks with running water, to name three.

We’ve talked about going backwards on the walks to see how many other people are using the book. But for this blog, we’re sticking with the proper direction on each walk. 

Walk #7, Berryman Station, is worth doing, but it isn’t really comparable to the other nine walks. 

We really liked Walk #1, Claremont—The Uplands, and Walk #9, “Rose” Walk. Very fine houses made both walks enjoyable. We found Walk #10, Cordonices Park, to be the most strenuous to date.

After some searching, we found a base map to work off of, and our maps are fairly accurate regarding the boundary between Oakland and Berkeley, we think. 

Also on maps, Mr Fleming has his estimates of the distance of each walk, and Google maps has its estimate, and they don’t match. There is some thought that Google doesn’t know about staircases. Anyway, both estimates are a black box, and are close enough for rock and roll. 

Trash cans don’t show up much in the photos, but they are common. Berkeley and Oakland have rules that do not allow them to be out in the street except for the pick up day. 

We came across chickens (even a goose) in a number of yards, which surprised us. 

“41 Berkeley Walking Tours” is not easy to use. If you have the book (which is admittedly interesting) our suggestion is to look at the map that accompanies each of the tours. Then match up a number on the street you’re on and go to the text to see what it says about the house. The text itself sometimes presents homes in no order whatsoever. 

Here’s a quick review of the first ten walks. 

Next—Terrace View Park.