In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty warm 'round these parts. It's a time where nobody really wants to be working while the summer sun beams in (if you're lucky enough to have windows) and most folk would rather be "anywhere but here." As such, we'd like to think that summer is synonymous with "adventure season." It's a time where we all want to shed our hibernatory habits and go forth into parts unknown. (If this doesn't sound like you or your summer plans, come on, live a little.) The good news is that you don't have to travel far to discover untapped places of beauty and reverie—and while the term staycation might feel like a cop out, in some parts of this great city, it surely is not. Trust us, "here" can actually be mighty fine. So, in partnership with Sanpellegrino® Sparkling Fruit Beverages and their Delightways app, we're rising to the occasion and pleased to give you a little primer on a fan favorite neighborhood of ours—Jackson Square—and a few of the local hidden-in-plain-sight gems that make us tick, time and time again.

One of the only distinct areas in the city that retains some fully preserved 19th Century character—and the only one downtown—is the area known as Jackson Square, which is only about six total city blocks, centered on Jackson Street, and sandwiched between North Beach and the Financial District. The neighborhood is famed for its distinct look—the Italianate and brick architecture along one particular stretch of Jackson, between Sansome and Montgomery is hard to miss, thanks to a group of late 19th Century buildings that survived citywide fire of 1906. The reason, as legend has it, is that the Army arrived to save a government building on the block, and then learned that A.P. Hoteling's whiskey warehouse was next door. As we all know, whiskey is a prize worth fighting for. They saved the whole block, whiskey and all, using a hose that stretched all the way to the Embarcadero and pumped saltwater onto the encroaching flames. Today, it's the perfect spot for a quick summer afternoon getaway—without having to go very far at all.

Arader Galleries
The go-to spot in town for rare maps, botanical prints, and expensively framed natural history illustrations, Arader Galleries fits well in this tony area with historical cred. Dating to the days when this was the city's primary design district, Arader remains a destination for collectors of engravings and lithographs depicting the American West, Californiana, and Hawaiiana—think fancy globes, intricate illustrations of pineapples, and the earliest maps ever made of the complete North America. You might not be able to afford anything here, but the place is a small museum that will appeal to any map nerd among you—or inspire you to become one.

Hotaling Place and the Hotaling Building
Affixed to the Hotaling Building, which was once A.P. Hotaling's whiskey repository—the largest of its kind on the West Coast, built in 1866—there's now a plaque that gets featured on occasional history tours, but it's easily ignored by most newcomers. The plaque includes the limerick from 1906 by Charles Field that commemorates the saving of the warehouse during the fires that followed the Great Earthquake. The alley is now home to an exclusive private dining club called Villa Taverna, not to mention multi-million-dollar condos—and if you walk the one block to Washington Street, you'll land at the base of the TransAmerican Pyramid.

Bix
While it's not exactly a secret anymore, the bar and restaurant called Bix sits down the narrow alley called Gold Street in a grand, tucked away space that automatically calls to mind a speakeasy. San Francisco never had to hide its drinking all that much during Prohibition—law enforcement here, when it came to alcohol, was reportedly spotty. But the city's long underground gay population did do some hiding for a while, and for an unclear number of decades, this space was home to a gay nightspot known just as Gold Street, hidden just blocks from the notorious Barbary Coast. These days it's a classy spot with nightly live jazz, caviar atop potato pillows, and well made classic cocktails, but it still has the air of something hidden and outside time—like a movie-set version of a West Coast speakeasy, complete with bartenders in uniform and extras who gesture with martini glasses in hand.

Sydney G. Walton Square
One of the lesser known but most successful small city parks in San Francisco—both in terms of design and daily use—is this little one-block pocket park that abuts Jackson Square. It was created as a central focal point for the Golden Gateway development, built around it in the 1960s to satisfy the city's $1 million public art requirement for developments of this size. With its rolling "Alpine meadow" contours, conceived by landscape architect Peter Walker, it remains a quiet oasis on the edge of the bustling Financial District, featuring a few cool sculptures—notably, a portrait of Georgia O'Keefe and her dogs by Marisol Escobar, and a 1977 kinetic sculpture by George Rickey called "Two Open Rectangles." And if you're wondering about the odd, free-standing brick archway at the Front Street entrance to the park, that's another remnant from an earlier era that survived the earthquake and fire. It was the entrance to the Colombo Market, once the city's main produce market in the years before and after 1906, and the area remained a market—and a notoriously stinky one—into the 1960s before the Golden Gateway sprung up.

The Old Ship Saloon
As the story goes, a three-masted ship called the Arkansas came into the Bay at the height of the Gold Rush in 1849, eventually blowing aground on Alcatraz during a storm. It was then towed to the corner of Pacific and Battery, which was a beach at the time, and soon the hull of the ship, now partly underground, became a saloon, thus the "Established 1851" sign above the door—even though the building you see there isn't exactly where things started. The above-ground portion of the ship was torn down in 1859, and the brick rooming house you now see was built above it, becoming known as the Old Ship Ale House. Now it's more of a polished neighborhood sports bar with a nautical theme, decent nachos, and expensive Scotch, but they make a point to serve the Barbary Coast's signature cocktail, the Pisco Punch.

Feeling like having a little adventure? We thought so! Go ahead—we hope you're ready find your calling, speakeasy style. And alongside our friends at Sanpellegrino® Sparkling Fruit Beverages, we encourage you to discover The Life Deliziosa™—the joy of wandering and the art of serendipity. Want to add a breath of fresh air to your journeys to come? Discover Delightways today—it's a curated journey-finding app full of local haunts and hidden gems that encourages you to rediscover the art of wandering—right here, at home in San Francisco. Delighways helps you live The Life Deliziosa™, reminding you that delight is not only in the destination, but in the moments of joy we find along the way. Traditional mapping apps, step aside!

If you've got a destination, take a chance on something new and discover the most delightful way there. Keep cool with a refreshing Sanpellegrino® Sparkling Fruit Beverage and find your joy in the journey today.

This post is a sponsored collaboration between Sanpellegrino® Sparkling Fruit Beverages and Gothamist staff.

(Jay Barmann/SFist)