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

A 90-acre park on former landfill that hosts an annual kite festival.

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

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

A massive ultra-modern church presents a science-fiction view of Catholicism's inclusive future.

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.

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

This (occupied) house is 10 feet wide and full of spite.

Antiques by the Bay.

A decommissioned Naval base now rents itself out for people who want to blow stuff up.

Playable, historic pinball machines fill this Alameda museum.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

Haunting and beautiful trees, doomed to die.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

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

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.

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

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

This historic observatory contains the world's oldest refracting lens telescope.

Brisbane's manmade urban beach has enough water to fill five Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The fully functional, submerged Vanuatu Post Office is definitely one of a kind.

The highest tropical mountain range in the world is in Central Peru, home to a vast array of exotic and quirky plants and animals.