We get asked to book the street art tour a lot, and our honest answer is that you can do most of it yourself with two hours and no ticket. Getsemani's murals are on the outside of people's houses. There's no gate, no opening time, and nobody checks whether you paid.
What a paid tour buys you is context: who painted which wall, which families have lived on that block for generations, and what the paint has to do with the neighbourhood pushing back against being priced out. That's a real thing and it's worth money if you care about it. What it doesn't buy you is access. So walk it first, and book a guide after if the place hooks you, which it usually does.
Getting there from us is a walk, not a taxi. You go out of San Diego, down through the walled city and across past Parque del Centenario, and then you're in it. We're an art hotel, but not the stuffy, silent, white-walls kind, so we're the wrong people to tell you to look at paintings quietly. Getsemani is the loud version of the same idea: work you look at while somebody's selling you a lemonade next to it.
One piece of timing advice that matters more than any route. Before 10am the lanes are empty, the light is soft and you can photograph a wall without six people in it. From about 5pm the neighbourhood wakes up and Plaza de la Trinidad turns into an open-air living room. Both are good. Midday is hot, white-bright and the worst of the three.