The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

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.

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.

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.

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

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

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

This historic Victorian hotel has a scandalous history of affairs and murder.

A priest with no formal artistic training used basic house paint to create gorgeous religious scenes inside this historic church.

A controversial memorial at the place where Captain Cook met his violent end.

The only royal palace on U.S. soil has been a territorial capitol, a military headquarters, and a prison for a queen.

Watch the newest land on the planet form before your eyes.

This ancient market is often referred to as the oldest shopping mall in the world.

Museum dedicated to literary greats of the Romantic Period is also the home in which Keats met his untimely end.

This ritzy Italian market is built around a statue of an unforgiven heretic who was burned for his belief in an endless universe.

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.

Built to bless whalers before their voyages, this Massachusetts church now features a ship-shaped pulpit.

The city of Halifax still bears the scars of the largest explosion prior to the atomic bomb.

A massive Montreal stadium that has seen nothing but trouble since its inception.

This 1967 experiment in modular architecture was designed to be a new model for urban living.

A grand Gothic Revival basilica with stained glass depictions of Montreal's religious history has only one soul resting in its crypt.