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

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

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

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

A 300-ship graveyard, with a few still visible at low tide.

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

Only hotel where you can legally launder money.

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

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

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

The oldest lawn bowling club in the United States.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

San Francisco’s condensed garden of incredible plant growth.

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

A pair of slides and a tree-lined stair corridor have been an urban oasis for nearly 40 years.

Come for the flowers, stay for the bats!

This controversial museum includes such detested exhibits as a chocolate suicide bomber and fecal-smelling digestion machine.

A Nessie-like monster supposedly lurks in this lake.

One man's extraordinary topiary garden in a small South Carolina town.

This titanic steel chain linking two buildings was installed without permission but instantly beloved.

The world's largest fire hydrant is supposedly tornado-proof.

This psychedelic tromp l'oeil seems to be beckoning drivers to crash into a wall.