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Follow a family of movie buffs as they trace the steps of royalty from "The Princess Diaries" and find a little fun of their own in San Francisco, California

If my family hadn't loved The Princess Diaries so much, we might never have decided to trail young Mia Thermopolis (played by Anne Hathaway) to her charmingly eccentric San Francisco neighborhood. Haven't seen Disney's film about a hip teen whose royal grandmother (Julie Andrews) comes to America to proclaim her the princess of Genovia? Order it from Netflix and study the locations. Your teens will appreciate that Ms. Hathaway's 16-year-old Mia lives in scruffy SoMa, a funky, off beat, "up and coming" style zone. If you follow in the footsteps of this princess of San Francisco, you'll find SoMa (the region south of Market Street) has already up and come.

SoMa's streets, neatly wrapped around the Yerba Buena Gardens development, bustle with youth, black clothes, gelled hair and high tech boutiques. In dot-com fashion, urban billboards with Cesar Chavez advertising iMacs hang beside those claiming IBM cybernauts have cracked the Linux code.

Rather than down'n'out street people (this was once the Mission District), visitors today can focus on the jewel-like SFMoMA modern art museum (415/357-4000); the black glass, four-story Metreon mall; and Zeum (415/777-2800), a fascinating children's technology museum designed for 8 to 18-year-olds.

Movie Magic Strikes Again

As in most feature films, several of The Princess Diaries locations which had enchanted our son were actually not in SoMa at all. Mia's private school entrance was an apartment house on Russian Hill, the gym was at the Alverno High School in Sierra Madre, her cool loft apartment was a firehouse in the Excelsior district, the Queen's altercation with a trolley took place on Russian Hill, the opulent Genovian Consulate was created within Los Angeles' former Doheny Mansion, and the beach party where the newly outed Princess is double-crossed by her beau was actually filmed at Zuma Beach in Malibu, hundreds of miles away.

Though not in SoMa, we did love San Francisco's Musée Mécanique (415/346-2000) where the Princess takes her regal grandma for an afternoon of fun. This vintage penny arcade used to be at the Cliff House (415/386-3330), a seaview restaurant and gift shop complex overlooking Point Lobos at the edge of Golden Gate Park. However, the Musée Mécanique moved to a new location at Pier 45, at the foot of Taylor Street at Fisherman's Wharf after the film was made.

With handfuls of spare change, my whole family made boxers punch, ball players pivot on tiny hinges, enameled families whirl on carousels, fat rouged ladies giggle out loud, and turbaned gypsies hand out fortunes. From one scratched iron slot came my fortune: "A tidal wave of new experiences are fast coming your way. Don't be swept away by them..." A fortune which might have served the young, reluctant princess as well.