A promotional sun clock on the site of San Francisco's great raceway.

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

The interior of the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining" was based on this Yosemite original.

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

A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

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

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

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Sitting atop San Francisco's tallest hill, a cross honors the victims of the Armenian genocide.