Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

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

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

Floating man-made island and upscale restaurant.

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

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

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

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

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

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

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.

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

Once the largest windmill outside of Holland, with enormous 114 foot sails.

Radioactivity still cause for concern at this urban explorer's paradise.

A vast city of the dead, where the deceased outnumber the living by more than a million.

The most beautiful Taco Bell in the world even has surfboard parking.

A 1920s speakeasy that had rum runners racing up and down the shores of California.

This controversial depiction of the "Founder of California" looks as though it was sculpted from mashed potatoes.

A burnt orange monolithic dome structure perched on a hillside near Interstate 280.

A classically inspired temple in Redwood City.

This old-world mansion with lush gardens is a gem in the heart of Silicon Valley.