Don't get me wrong: I'm a big East Bay booster. But every couple of years, I like to return to the part of San Francisco that reeled me in as a college grad a decade and a half ago. I pack a bag, cross the bridge, and spend a weekend wandering the northern edge of the city, soaking in the visual bling: the bay, the bridge, the boats, and the rows of pastel houses marching up up up from the Marina to the tippy-top of Pacific Heights. That’s where I’ve found my perfect perch, in a sun-drenched, buttery room at the Hotel Drisco, looking out over the mansions of the mucky-mucks along Pacific Avenue (pictured above: the view from Room 404A, hoteldrisco.com). It’s all so deliciously civilized.

I could walk around the neighborhood for hours, watching the fog skim the tops of the wedding-cake Victorians and the brooding, Wuthering Heights–style Tudors. It’s always just as dazzling as I remember it. But there are discoveries to be made, too. Bop down the Lyon Street steps and veer into the Presidio to SenSpa, disguised as a WWI-era storage shed until you walk in the door to find an airy, warm, art-filled sanctuary where you’ll happily lose an afternoon to a facial or massage.

There are more treasures to uncover in the boutiques along Sacramento, Fillmore, and Union Streets—all easily walkable from the hotel. I’m not what you’d call an enthusiastic shopper, but I still manage to fill my room with bags full of European toys, impractical shoes, and thrift-store castoffs better than anything in my closet at home.

Two of the city’s most buzzed-about restaurants are also a stroll away, even in my new shoes. Perfectly shaken cocktails and an hours-long dinner in the high, arched dining room at Spruce are worth the trouble it takes to land a table. Lunch is a better bet at SPQR, due to its devoted following and no-reservations policy. After several courses of Roman-style antipasti and a carafe or two of wine, you’ll be ruined for anything other than a sunny nap back at the hotel, windows flung open to catch the bay breeze.

After a couple of days, I return to the East Bay feeling like I’ve been halfway around the globe. But it takes me only half an hour to get home, which makes it all too easy to swear I’ll do it again next year.

Hotel Drisco: 2901 Pacific Ave., S.F., 415-346-2880, jdvhotels.com/drisco, from $169; SenSpa: 1161 Gorgas Ave., S.F., 415-441-1777,

senspa.com; SPQR: 1911 Fillmore St., S.F., 415-771-7779, spqrsf.com; Spruce: 3640 Sacramento St., S.F., 415-931-5100, sprucesf.com.

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