Click MAP to locate destinations preceded by yellow numbers.

Start the day with breakfast at the popular 1 Cafe Flore (2298 Market St.; 415-621-8579). Nearby is where the world-renowned AIDS memorial quilt got its start in 1987. It now has 45,000 panels.

The largest flagpole in the city flies a rainbow flag above 2 Harvey Milk Plaza, which begins above ground at Castro and Market streets and descends a wide curving stairway to the Muni Metro station entrance. A brass plaque describes Milk’s life, works and death, and concludes with one of Milk’s pithy comments on his role in the gay community: “I am all of us!”

Across the street is 3 Twin Peaks (401 Castro; 415-864-9470), which made a major statement when it opened in 1975, breaking the tradition of dark and secretive bars. It emerged as the country’s first ground-floor gay bar with expansive, clear glass windows. Down the block is Timothy Pflueger’s landmark 4 Castro Theatre (429 Castro; 415-621-6120), home to the annual Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in June. It also can be counted on year-round for imaginative billings of sophisticated, classic films. CAEvening performances at this Spanish Baroque-style theater include Wurlitzer organ music.

On the same block is 5 A Different Light bookstore (489 Castro; 415-431-0891), which Betty & Pansy’s Severe Queer Review calls “the gay community center of San Francisco,” and 6 Cliff’s Variety (479 Castro; 415-431-5365), home of everything 5 & 10ish since 1972.

Be sure to stop at 7 Harvey’s (500 Castro; 415-431-4278), formerly known as the Elephant Walk and the site of the White Night riots in 1979. In retaliation for disturbances at City Hall following Dan White’s acquittal for the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, police dragged patrons out of the bar and beat them. The bar sued the city and won. Today, eclectic wall exhibits are donated or lent by the community: photos tracing Milk’s rise to political power; a poster signed by the cast of “La Cage Aux Folles”; an oil painting of Liberace; “Play Fair,” the first-ever safe sex pamphlet published by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

8 Harvey Milk’s Camera Shop (575 Castro), a Victorian storefront that is among the more historic addresses in the Castro, now is the Skin Zone soap shop. Milk and his partner Scott Smith opened the store in 1972, and it quickly became a political gathering place. Milk and Smith lived upstairs and ran the store for four years.

Walk back to Market St. and 9 The Cafe (2367 Market; 415-861-3846), a notable bar and dance club for men and women that looks out from the second floor to the spectacle at the confluence of Market, Castro and 17th streets.

10 The Eureka-Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library (3555 16th St.; 415-554-9445) has a solid collection of lesbian and gay literature.

For dinner, try the supper club 11 Mecca (2029 Market; 415-621-7000) with haute-Mediterranean cuisine; the eponymous 12 2223 Market (415-431-0692) for California cuisine; 13 Ma Tante Sumi (4243 18th St.; 415-626-7864) for California/Asian fusion; 14 Firewood Cafe (4248-18th St.; 252-0999) for pizza and other Italian entrees; 15 Blue (2337 Market; 415-863-2583) for American diner-style food; 16 Hot N Hunky (4039 18th St.; 415-621-6365) for great classic burgers. Be sure to stop in at the new, 40,000 square-foot 17 San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center (1800 Market, 415-865-5555), which offers legal, health, social, educational and cultural workshops, events and counseling. About 20 organizations have offices in the building, called the Charles M. Holmes Campus at The Center.

Many events throughout the year are tied to the Pride Parade in June: The 10-day San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (415-703-8650), presented at the Castro Theatre and other venues by Frameline, the nation’s oldest and largest gay and lesbian film-presenting organization, ends the day of the parade. The Saturday night before the parade is the Dyke March, which assembles in the Castro and features a motorcycle contingent of renown, and Pink Saturday, a street party in the heart of the Castro.

Other events relate to AIDS — the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial (415-863-4676) in May — and to Harvey Milk’s murder, a candlelight march Nov. 27. Queer Arts Festival, presented by the Queer Cultural Center (415-865-5611), five weeks in early summer, features poetry, visual arts, dance, comedy at various venues around the city.

Street fairs, too, celebrate gay and lesbian life: Up Your Alley Fair (415-861-3247) in August, the Folsom Street Fair (415-861-3247) in September and the Castro Street Fair (415-467-3354) in October.

Watch for All Our Families’ (415) 981-1960 alternative family events held year-round. And don’t forget Halloween, THE party night of the year.

Rainbow flag
above Harvey Milk Plaza

Twin Peaks bar

AIDS memorial quilt display in Washington, D.C., 1996