An elaborate gift from Claus Spreckels is now a piece of San Francisco history.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.

This private residence was the template for one of the most beloved television homes of all time.

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

Faceless white figures loom over the city from the rooftop.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.

The Flatiron Building's storied West Coast cousin is a lot more into religion.

Dive bar built out of the remains of a whaling ship.

A hardware store Buddha statue installed to deter vandalism wound up attracting Vietnamese immigrants who came to pray.

This Oakland fairytale kingdom, fiercely devoted to childlike whimsy, was an early inspiration for Disneyland.

This mysterious series of teeny guerrilla installations sheds a whimsical light on street art in Oakland.

A massive ultra-modern church presents a science-fiction view of Catholicism's inclusive future.

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

A restored 1920s cascade stairway provides one of the best views of Oakland's Lake Merritt.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.