A working model of the entire San Francisco Bay and much of the Sacramento River Delta, complete with regular tides that change every 14 minutes.

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

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

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

Floating man-made island and upscale restaurant.

Dive bar built out of the remains of a whaling ship.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

A historic hotel that made a cameo in Hitchcock's classic film has no intention of letting guests forget its fame.

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

The original place where water met land in the City by the Bay is outlined in brass.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

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

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

A former hardware store near Yerba Buena is the official home of California's history.

Odd stone and concrete monuments in the "Poet of the Sierras" eclectic folly garden.

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

This Oakland fairytale kingdom, fiercely devoted to childlike whimsy, was an early inspiration for Disneyland.

A crumbling Beaux Arts monument to the Bay Area's age of rail.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.

This restaurant offers the original California cuisine.