If you spent any time outside this weekend — and you should have, because the weather was absurdly perfect — you might have noticed just how striking these homes look when the light hits right. Ornate cornices, bold color palettes, bay windows stacked three stories high. This is the kind of craftsmanship that modern construction has largely abandoned in favor of whatever you'd call those boxy gray-and-glass developments popping up everywhere.

And that raises a point worth making: these buildings have survived earthquakes, fires, decades of neglect, and wave after wave of regulatory complexity. Keeping a Victorian in San Francisco isn't cheap — between permits, historic preservation rules, and the general cost of existing in this city, homeowners who maintain these gems are doing the Lord's work with their own wallets. The least the city could do is not make it harder.

Valencia itself has become a bit of a tale of two streets — longtime neighborhood spots sitting next to newer, pricier additions. But the architectural bones remain gorgeous. One local noted that Valencia offers "a bit more posh" compared to Mission Street proper, and that's fair. But posh or not, the streetscape is genuinely beautiful and worth a slow weekend walk.

So next time you're tempted to elbow through the crowd at Alamo Square for the hundredth time, take a stroll down Valencia instead. The Painted Ladies there won't charge you for parking, and you won't have to dodge a single tour bus.