A storybook European village in Berkeley.

This stunning blue and gold room changed cities twice before becoming part of the Smithsonian.

The national park was once a plantation estate.

A super-sized promotional trick that is now a D.C. landmark.

The famous abolitionist’s preserved estate is one of Washington's finest monuments to its great Black citizens.

It looks like a whale, it's part of Yale, and it's best-known by a nickname you can probably work out for yourself.

While many places make the claim, the Library of Congress says this restaurant is the birthplace of the hamburger.

The headquarters of the famous Yale society.

Yale University's home for rare works, including the mysterious Voynich Manuscript.

The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

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

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

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.

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

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

The quaint little store that is said to have inspired a famous Dickens novel was only given its name after the book was released.

A 90-acre park on former landfill that hosts an annual kite festival.

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

This subtle Berkeley paving stone actually marks off a lawless tube of air that extends into space.

A pier that used to act as a busy ferry dock is now a decaying favorite of local fisherman and urban artists.