Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

This Los Angeles animation studio is keeping the wonder of stop motion puppetry alive.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

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

Carved by a waterfall in a hard-to-reach rock formation, this heart-shaped rock has inspired romantics for decades.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

Established in the '60s, a family-owned tropical drink bar founded by Ray Buhen, bartender to the stars.

World-famous, Pink's still manages to keep its prized cult fetish status.

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

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.

A castle that was built stone by stone by an eccentric journalist.

Left untouched since a double murder-suicide in the 1960s, Los Feliz murder mansion remains a neighborhood mystery.

The private clubhouse for the members of the Academy of Magical Arts.

Panorama exhibition hall in old silent theater with a beautiful backyard garden.

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A strange house built only at night, with rumored mystic inspiration.

A prohibition-style speakeasy takes up residence in the last Victorian residence in Hollywood.

A museum befitting the city responsible for supplying the majority of the world's LSD.

A hospital closed seemingly in the middle of operations, leaving behind fodder for horror films and ghost hunters.