Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

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

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

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

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.

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

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.

An artsy hidden staircase leads to breathtaking views of San Francisco.

A majestic lion statue guards this Parisian botanical garden, and feeds on an unsettling item.

A haunting collection of the vanished and disappearing natural world.

Legend says if you stick your thumb in the hole and it gets wet your wish will be granted.

A small etching on the white marble parapet was written in runic script by a Viking mercenary.

Over the centuries, this island paradise has done it all, from providing monks with ecclesiastical respite to sheltering an exiled Leon Trotsky.

1513 Turkish world map, full of European state secrets and snarky commentary.

An incredible menagerie of more than 3 million taxidermied animals at the oldest science museum in Europe.

Over 50 exquisite hand-painted Renaissance maps decorate a Medici storage room.

The largest and most famous wax anatomical collection anywhere in the world.

The middle finger of modernity.

Museum devoted to the artificial language of Esperanto.