Over a year ago I took an amazing walk with family members on hidden paths that swerved in and out and in-between beautiful houses tucked away in the hills of Berkelely. My guide on this walk is the incomparable hidden walker's book, Hidden Walks in the East Bay & Marin: Pathways, Essays, & Yesteryear, by Stephen Altschuler. What's amazing about this book and about this walk is that by following Altschuler's directions, you quickly leave paved roads to descend railroad tie paths that take turns into narrow, protected walkways that sometimes appear undisturbed for decades-and yet these paths are for public use because they've been established years ago between private properties. On this walk we discovered beautiful old homes, parks completely surrounded by backyard fences that appear hidden from adjacent streets, fabulous views of canyons and Grizzly Peak, and a surprisingly private, yet public, park by which one enters by way of a hidden walkway and exists by looking for the manhole cover Alstchuler describes. (That was difficult to find!)
On another walk described in the book my daughter Erin and her then fiance (now my son-in-law Thomas) accompanied the family on an amazing trek through wooded dirt pathways between houses and up and down walkways connecting hilly streets full of Bernard Maybeck designed homes. At one point when we got drenched with rain, we dashed for cover over to a Tibetan Buddhist center where, also described as a place to visit on the walk, we took off our muddy, wet shoes in the entry way in order to go into the quiet, peaceful retreat. We were welcomed despite our dishelved appearance-probably something that would happen only in Berkeley!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment