From the sky, a kaleidoscope of color brightens the grey landscape of the San Francisco Bay.

This concrete ship has had four careers - World War I tanker, floating amusement park, fishing pier, and artificial reef.

Housed in a memorial lighthouse, this museum relays the history of surfing, beginning with the antics of royal Hawaiian teenagers.

The oldest continuously operating church in California.

The stately birthplace of California's statehood.

An old whaling station now serves to give the public a look at the commercial whaling industry, no longer a part of Monterey's economy.

The first safe in this California town had to hold all the gold.

Once close to extinction, there is no shortage of elephant seals on the beaches of Año Nuevo State Park.

The oldest house in the capital of Silicon Valley.

A statue commemorate Tommie Smith and John Carlos's brave protest at the 1968 Olympics, a watershed moment for civil rights.

A unique market that brings together various goods and cultures.

Check out a shovel along with your Shakespeare.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

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

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

The headquarters of a secretive order is also a beautifully-designed park.

An extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts and mummies.

A peculiar mansion built by the troubled heir to the Winchester Rifle Company fortune.

Worker-owned cooperative and resource for those looking to lighten their ecological footprint.

The Laureates here get something even more coveted than a Nobel Prize: free parking for life.

Where the alchemists dream of transmuting base metal into gold was actually achieved.

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

An extensive collection of reliquaries containing the bones of saints housed in the largest Catholic church in Venice.

The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.