Sights in California
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Crissy Field
The Presidio's army airstrip has been stripped of asphalt and reinvented as a haven for coastal birds, kite-fliers and windsurfers enjoying sweeping views of Golden Gate Bridge.
reviewed
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Alamo Square Park
The finest restaurants in town can’t provide views as spectacular as the picnic tables atop Alamo Square Park facing Steiner St’s Postcard Row, a row of pastel Victorian ‘Painted Lady’ houses with gingerbread detailing and frosting flourishes that may leave you craving dessert. The city skyline looms in the background, and from the corner of Steiner and Fulton Sts you can glimpse City Hall. On the crest of the hill, check out the old shoes creatively reused as planters. On foggy days, you may want to wear a parka – as you can guess from the wind-sculpted pines, it can get a tad blustery up here.
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Museum of Natural History & Gladwin Planetarium
While the permanent exhibits lack the 'hands-on' sparkle of many children's discovery centers, the Museum of Natural History boasts a few noteworthy gems and typically stages excellent special exhibits. Bug buffs should check out the glass wall holding 4,000 mounted Santa Barbara insects, as well as the replica of a pygmy mammoth skeleton unearthed on Santa Rosa Island in 1994. Outside you'll find the complete skeleton of a 72ft blue whale.
Kids especially will like the Gladwin Planetarium , which has intro-to-astronomy shows for children as well as adult programs that explore current scientific theory; call for show times.
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San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum
The main attraction in Embarcadero is the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum aboard the USS Midway, the navy's longest-serving aircraft carrier (1945-91). A self-guided audio-tour takes in the berthing spaces, the galley, the sick bay and, of course, the flight deck with its restored aircraft.
Any armchair Mavericks will want to check out Mach Combat on the hangar deck, below the flight deck (www.machcombat-midway.com) where you can 'fly' an F-4 in a mini-simulator at a desk. Alternatively, you can get the full cockpit experience in which you wear a flight suit, receive a mission briefing, close down the canopy and 'take off'. Make reservations.
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Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum
The free Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum is an embarrassment of riches for history nerds, science geeks and music lovers. Filled with historical written artifacts from the private collection of David Karpeles, a Santa Barbara real-estate investor, it's a true SoCal treasure.
One of just eight Karpeles manuscript museums in the country, this branch houses the original proposed draft of the Bill of Rights, an Emancipation Proclamation Amendment signed by Abraham Lincoln, and Einstein's description of the theory of relativity. A recent special exhibit highlighting historic women contained writings from Lucretia Borgia, Catherine the Great and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Lots…
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North Berkeley
Just north of campus is a neighborhood filled with lovely homes, parks and some of the best restaurants in California. The popular Gourmet Ghetto stretches along Shattuck Ave north of University Ave for several blocks, anchored by Chez Panisse. Northwest of here, Solano Ave, which crosses from Berkeley into Albany, is lined with lots of funky shops, more good restaurants and a couple of movie theaters.
North Berkeley, heading up into the hills, is also chock-full of magnificent homes. You can see many examples of Bernard Maybeck's superb architecture, including 1515 La Loma Ave and at 2704, 2711, 2733, 2751, 2754 and 2780 Buena Vista Way. Wander these and other streets to…
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International Boulevard
Formerly known as E 14th St and once a neglected part of town, International Blvd is now a great place to stroll on a Sunday afternoon. Latino and Asian immigrants have turned it into a 3-mile carnival of food and festivities. You'll find an impressive fleet of excellent taco trucks parked along Fruitvale Ave or at the corner of High St and International Blvd. The Bay Area's best pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) joints are just blocks away.
Mexican and Central American restaurants rub elbows with Vietnamese. Dive bars selling cheap beer and margaritas open their doors here and there. Families out for the paseo, squads of young men, bevies of young women, strolling musicians…
reviewed
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77 Geary
The most intriguing art usually appears in what looks like the wrong place, and 77 Geary's unmarked entryway is no exception. Get seduced on the mezzanine by the minimalism of Patricia Sweetow Gallery and shaken up on the 2nd floor by the political art of Togonon Gallery. For beauty with brains, see Marx & Zavattero next door for David Hevel's neo-baroque, middle-America-meets-Hollywood taxidermy sculptures and Paul Mullins' tragic-comic exploration of rural contentment. Sensitive meets sensational at Rena Bransten Gallery, featuring shows such as Hung Liu's mirage-like portraits of found ancestors and collaged stills from 'unwatchable' movies by a man who should know: …
reviewed
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Glacier Point
Soaring 3200ft above the valley floor, Glacier Point (7214ft) presents one of the park's most eye-popping vistas and practically puts you at eye level with Half Dome. To the left of Half Dome lies U-shaped, glacially carved Tenaya Canyon, while below you'll see Vernal and Nevada Falls. Glacier Point is about an hour's drive from Yosemite Valley via Glacier Point Rd off Hwy 41.
Along the road to Glacier Point, hiking trails lead to other spectacular viewpoints such as Dewey Point and Sentinel Dome. You can also hike up from the valley floor to Glacier Point via the thigh-burning Four Mile Trail. If you've driven up to Glacier Point and want to get away from the madding…
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Chinese Temple
By the levee, the Chinese Temple is a compelling draw that really exceeds expectations. Today there is no Chinatown in Oroville, but at one time the town was bustling with more than 10,000 Chinese. A 1907 flood wiped out Chinatown and many Chinese stayed to help rebuild the levee, but their numbers rapidly dwindled afterwards.
During the 19th century, traveling theater troupes from China toured a circuit of Chinatowns in California. Oroville was the end of the line, and the troupes often left their sets, costumes and puppets here before heading back to China. Consequently, Oroville has a collection of 19th-century stage finery unrivaled anywhere in California. The old…
reviewed
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Lombard Street
You’ve seen its eight switchbacks in a thousand photographs. The tourist board has dubbed this ‘the world’s crookedest street, ’ which is factually incorrect. Vermont St in Potrero Hill deserves this street cred, but Lombard is (much) more scenic, with its red-brick pavement and lovingly tended flowerbeds. It wasn’t always so bent; before the automobile it lunged straight down the hill. Don’t try anything funny. The recent clampdown on renegade skaters means that the Lombard St thrills featured in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game will remain strictly virtual, at least until the cops get slack. Until 2008, every Easter Sunday for seven years adults had arrived at the…
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Telegraph Ave
Telegraph Ave is undeniably the throbbing heart of studentville in Berkeley, pumping out a sidewalk-flow of students and shoppers, vagrants and vendors, brisk walkers and sluggish strollers, those trying to squeeze their way out and those who never seem to leave. The frenetic energy buzzing from the university's Sather Gate on any given day is a mix of youthful post-hippies reminiscing about days before their time and young hipsters who sneer at tie-dyed nostalgia.
Ponytailed panhandlers press you for change, and street stalls hawk everything from crystals to bumper stickers to self-published books. It's all very interesting, but the street is also immensely useful to…
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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Pride Parade
Hands down, the year's biggest party. Pirates in pink and giant-winged fairies toss candy and condoms from overflowing fanny packs, while pit bulls in rainbow-hued tutus trot alongside. Stilt-walkers in glitter, trannies on unicycles, queens on roller skates – anything goes. Crowds pour from BART and Muni, climbing streetlight posts for better views, and float-dancers strut atop moving stages. Growing almost every year since 1971, Pride draws about a million participants and sidewalk supporters, running the gamut from sweater queens to granola dykes, bondage masters to GLBT seniors. Afterwards there's an all-afternoon festival at Civic Center. Hotels fill; book early. The…
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Channel Islands National Park
The Channel Islands is an eight-island chain lying off the coast from Newport Beach to Santa Barbara. The four northern islands - San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Anacapa - along with tiny Santa Barbara island 38mi (61km) west of San Pedro comprise the Channel Islands National Park. The islands have unique flora and fauna and extensive tidepools and kelp forests.
Here you'll find almost around 150 plant and a few animal species that are not found anywhere else in the world.
On Anacapa, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa are several snorkeling, diving, swimming and kayaking opportunities among the kelp beds and sandy beaches. San Miguel and Santa Barbara are host to colonies…
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California Academy of Sciences
Architect Renzo Piano's 2008 landmark LEED-certified green building houses 38,000 weird and wonderful animals in a four-story rainforest and split-level aquarium under a 'living roof' of California wildflowers. After the penguins nod off to sleep, the wild rumpus starts at kids'-only Academy Sleepovers and over-21 NightLife Thursdays, when rainforest-themed cocktails encourage strange mating rituals among shy internet daters.
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Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias
Wawona, about 27 miles south of Yosemite Valley, is the park's historical center, but the main lure really is the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias the biggest and most impressive cluster of big trees in Yosemite. The star of the show - and what everyone comes to see - is the Grizzly Giant, a behemoth that sprang to life some 2700 years ago, or about the time the ancient Greeks held the first Olympic Games.
You can't miss it - it's a half-mile walk along a well-worn path starting near the parking lot. Beyond here, crowds begin to thin out a bit, although for more solitude you should arrive early in the morning or after 18:00.
The big attraction in the upper grove is the…
reviewed
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San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) was destined from the start in 1935 to be an eclectic, unconventional museum. But when it moved into architect Mario Botta’s light-filled brick box in 1995, it became clear just how far this museum was prepared to push the art world. The new museum showed its backside to New York and leaned full-tilt towards the western horizon, taking risks on then-unknowns like Matthew Barney and his poetic videos involving industrial quantities of Vaseline, and Olafur Eliasson’s outer-space installations that distort all sense of reality. Finally SFMOMA had room to launch international traveling shows by squeegee-wielding German painter…
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Lotusland
Book ahead for Lotusland, the legacy of eccentric Madame Ganna Walska; two-hour walking tours take in rare botanical species.
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Natural History Museum
Dinosaur skeletons, an impressive rattlesnake collection, an earthquake exhibit and nature-themed movies in a giant-screen cinema.
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Cabrillo National Monument
Enjoy stunning bay panoramas from the monument, which honors the leader of the first Spanish exploration of the West Coast. The nearby 1854 Old Point Loma Lighthouse helped guide ships until 1891 and is now a museum.
reviewed
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Coit Tower
Up the Filbert Street steps at Coit Tower, you'll find 360-degree views of downtown and wrap-around 1930s murals glorifying SF workers - once denounced as Communist, but now a landmark.
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Santa Barbara Museum of Art
These downtown galleries hold an impressive, well-edited collection of contemporary California artists, modern masters like Matisse and Chagall, 20th-century photography and Asian art, with provocative special exhibits. Sundays are pay-what-you-wish.
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Mission Santa Barbara
Established in 1786, California's hilltop 'Queen of the Missions' was the only one to escape secularization under Mexican rule. Look for Chumash artwork inside the vaulted church and a moody cemetery out back.
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Pit 91
Excavations at the La Brea Tar Pits continue every summer when you can watch paleontologists at work in Pit 91 . At other times, they're fussing over bones in the glass-encased laboratory inside the Page Museum itself, cleaning, identifying, cataloging and storing their discoveries.
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Crystal Pier
Up in Pacific Beach (or PB) the activity spreads further inland, especially along Garnet Ave, with bars, restaurants and vintage clothing stores. At the ocean end of Garnet Ave, Crystal Pier is worth a gander. Built in the 1920s, it's still home to a cluster of rustic cabins built out over the waves.
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