SAN FRANCISCO — Like any great city, San Francisco can show off more splashy landmarks than tourists could ever hope to see.

With the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Telegraph Hill and other sites on every sweeping horizon, it's hard to know which way to point your camera first.

HOLLY CRENSHAW/AJC (ENLARGE)

Tour guide Carolyn Reese describes a mural at Broadway and Columbus that depicts the history of North Beach in San Francisco. The Italian enclave also is known as a beatnik hangout.

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But San Francisco is more than its flashy facade. Along its hilly side streets, are layers upon layers to discover. In its quirky neighborhoods, this city reveals its true character.

There's the bustle of Chinatown, the faded flower power of the Haight, the lively gay scene of the Castro and the Latin hipster vibe of the Mission district. Sadly, some of that distinct neighborhood character is starting to fray. Even the casual observer will notice a Gap now where Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead used to hang out and creeping gentrification in the Mission.

Taking a walk with a local lets you see changes beyond the surface. Every day, San Francisco City Guides offers free — yes, completely free — walking tours of Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, Chinatown, the Castro and other historically rich neighborhoods, all conducted by guides who simply love the city and expect nothing more than a tip in return.

We strolled through North Beach, this city's version of Little Italy, which has slowly shrunk into itself, much like how New York's Italian district barely survives beyond Mulberry Street.

Pinned in by a tawdry red-light district along one border and an expanding Chinatown on the other, North Beach defiantly clings to its Italian roots. Yet, as we learned, many of the original Italian families were already packing their bags in the 1970s as real estate prices began to skyrocket.

Our guide through North Beach's fascinating maze of pasta, panini, prostitutes and priests was Carolyn Reese.

As we congregated at our starting point in front of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Reese drew our attention to another tour group across the street. We felt exceedingly wise to discover they'd shelled out big bucks to be led along the very same route we were about to explore for free.

Our first glimpse of North Beach's changing dynamics took place on the church's front steps. A spiritual anchor for the neighborhood since 1924, the church originally served a parish of Italian fisherman, and it still sends a procession to Fisherman's Wharf every fall for the annual blessing of the fleet.

As we walked away, a party of young Chinese men started to gather for a wedding, a reflection of how the church's congregation has changed.

Across the street in Washington Square Park, Asian women practiced tai chi where Italian men have played boccie for years.

Along the main drag of Columbus Avenue, our guide explained how A.P. Giannini founded the Bank of Italy — which grew to become Bank of America — in 1904 and how he brought financial stability to North Beach two years later after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire.

That story and others come to life at the North Beach Museum, a tiny treasure we never would have found without our guide. Secreted away on the second floor of the Eureka Bank building at 1435 Stockton, it's free and open to the public but only during traditional banking hours.

It's worth tracking down the museum to study its historic photos, learn about the first influx of Italian immigrants to the area and read up on North Beach natives such as banker Giannini, baseball great Joe DiMaggio and poet and beat writer Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Ferlinghettti can still be spotted sometimes at City Lights Bookstore at 261 Columbus Ave. Since he founded this literary landmark in 1953, it's become one of the best and most fiercely independent bookstores in the country, with a poetry collection that's unsurpassed. Open every day

10 a.m.-midnight, it's a great place to finish out an evening in North Beach, holed up in some dusty corner with a stack of hard-to-find volumes.

For a livelier finale to North Beach, there's the famed beatnik hangout Vesuvio Café, steps away at 255 Columbus Ave. Crammed with photos from the era, it also features a balcony that overlooks Jack Kerouac Alley, where the "On the Road" author is immortalized in a mural and the zeitgeist of the Beats lives on in a free-wheeling bit of verse on the wall.

Or there's the classic Tosca at 242 Columbus Ave, a great place to settle into a red pleather booth, order a cocktail and pump endless coins into the jukebox.

Old-timers, celebrities and scenesters have gravitated to this bar for decades for its retro vibe and amazing music selection. Where else on earth can you choose between old 45s of Maria Callas, Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti and Mario Lanza? And what better soundtrack to a late-night toast than a scratchy recording of an Enrico Caruso aria?

• Expect to pay close to $600 for nonstop Delta Air Lines flights from Atlanta to San Francisco this summer; about half that for one-stop service on multiple airlines. Once you're in San Francisco, North Beach is accessible by bus or cable car.

• For a schedule of San Francisco City Guides' free walking tours of North Beach and other San Francisco neighborhoods, San Francisco City Guides

• For take-away fare, duck into Molinari Delicatessen at 373 Columbus Ave., the nearest thing to a true Italian deli this side of the Atlantic. For more than 100 years, Molinari has been selling gourmet groceries, classic pastrami sandwiches, Italian cheeses and homemade salamis — perfect for a picnic in the park.
• Some say Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store at 566 Columbus Ave. is little more than a tourist trap these days. But the people watching is superb at this corner cafe that overlooks Washington Square Park. And for an inexpensive lunch, Mario's grilled eggplant focaccia sandwich with a juice glass-size serving of chianti is hard to beat.
• For a strong cup of house-roasted coffee or a light meal, try Cafe Trieste at 601 Vallejo St. This beatnik hangout attracted Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and other hipsters in the 1950s. A crowd still gathers here every Saturday afternoon to listen to gray-haired Italian men sing arias with the same passion they'd show if they were onstage at La Scala.
• L'Osteria del Forno at 519 Columbus Ave. doesn't look like much – just a few tables crammed into a low-key cafe. But its handmade gnocchi and other pastas defy the laws of gravity, and its wood-fired pizzas are among the city's best. No reservations and cash only. But don't worry, there's an ATM for Bank of America — what else? — right across the street.