If you’re even in San Francisco and want to capture that classic shot of downtown SF with the Victorian painted ladies in the foreground, then you’ll want to visit Alamo Square park at the corner of Hayes & Steiner streets (which is where all those photos are taken from). If you want to capture a good sunset shot, then consider staying at the Archbishop’s Mansion which is just across the park making for easy access to this photo spot.
I also like the painted laydies. I show this shot here:
http://www.outbackphoto.com/contest/contest_04/00uwe/D100_0001_1193_PaintedLadies.jpg
for the following reason as ti shows a subject where you may want to correct the white balance to the houses. But in reality you have here two types of WB. In the end you have to correct for the sun in the city.
This shot was part of a stitched image.
Uwe