Things to do in The Peninsula
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Tamarine
Palo Alto's most beautiful restaurant is this contemporary Vietnamese place. The dishes have a slight seafood bias and are finely prepared in the style of California cuisine. Most mains are suitable for sharing, and this is one of the Bay Area's best destinations for exotic cocktails.
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Empire Grill & Tap Room
The local yuppies favor this lively hangout that got play in Po Bronson's novel The First 20 Million is Always the Hardest. You can get pizza, sandwiches and sturdy meat-and-potato platters on the shady patio and wash it down with something from the 25 taps.
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La Taquería
Excellent burritos and tacos are assembled in this wonderful little taquería.
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Winchester Mystery House
The billboards up and down every highway in California may have triggered your tourist-trap alarm, but Winchester Mystery House is a bona fide curiosity. It's a ridiculous Victorian mansion with 160 rooms of various sizes (many of them utterly useless), dead-end hallways and a staircase that runs up to a ceiling all jammed together like a child's build-a-house game.
The woman responsible for it is Sarah Winchester, heir of the Winchester rifle fortune, who, beginning in 1884, spent 38 years building this sprawling mansion because the spirits of those killed by her husband's guns told her to do so. Apparently no expense was spared in the construction and the extreme result…
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Santana Row
A completely planned real-estate venture, Santana Row is a mixed-use space that brings together shopping, dining and entertainment along with townhouses, lofts and flats. There's a large boutique hotel and a multiplex cinema.
At its heart is a pedestrian-friendly thoroughfare that calls to mind 'Main St' ideals of traditional American small-town life, but the style of the architecture and overall effect is Mediterranean. The restaurants spill out onto sidewalk terraces, and public spaces have been designed to invite loitering and promenading. The idea is a popular one, and on warm evenings, the area is swarming with an energetic crowd. There are some excellent restaurant…
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Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Few drivers speeding along I-280 realize that things are speeding by beneath them at far higher velocities. The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, run by the university for the US Department of Energy, goes right under the freeway. Positrons (positively charged subatomic particles) hurtle down a straight 2-mile path in a 4in diameter linac (an accelerator beam tube), on their way to high-speed impacts at the other end of the tube.
Experiments at SLAC have resulted in the discovery of the existence of further subatomic particles, including quarks, and have gained the facility three Nobel Prizes so far. At 2 miles long, SLAC's Klystron Gallery is the world's longest buildi…
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Peralta Adobe & Fallon House
Peralta Adobe & Fallon House are historic San Jose houses that represent two very different early architectural styles, sitting across the road from each other near San Pedro Sq. To see the houses, drop by the visitors center.
The Peralta Adobe, the city's oldest building, dates from 1797 and is the last survivor from the original Spanish pueblo. The building is very basic, and the two rooms have been furnished as they might have been during their occupation by the Gonzales and Peralta families. Luis Maria Peralta came to the Bay Area at age 16 and died an American citizen and a millionaire, the owner of a large chunk of the East Bay.
Thomas Fallon married the daughter of …
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History Park
Historic buildings from all over San Jose have been brought together in this open-air museum southeast of the city centre in Kelley Park. The centerpiece is a half-scale replica of the 237ft-high 1881 Electric Light Tower.
The original tower was a pioneering attempt at street lighting, intended to illuminate the entire town centre. It was a complete failure but, lights or not, was left standing as a central landmark until it toppled over in 1915 due to rust and wind. Other buildings include an 1888 Chinese temple and the Pacific Hotel, which has rotating exhibits inside. The Trolley Restoration Barn restores historic trolley cars to operate on San Jose's light-rail line.…
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Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum
One of San Jose's more interesting attractions is the odd and educational Egyptian Museum which has an extensive collection that includes statues, household items and mummies. There's even a two-room, walk-through reproduction of an ancient subterranean tomb. The museum is the centerpiece of Rosicrucian Park west of downtown San Jose.
Even more intriguing is the Rosicrucian Order itself. Headquartered in Rosicrucian Park, the order is a nonreligious fraternity whose members seek to achieve spiritual enlightenment and material success through the study of mysticism and metaphysics. As the order's own website slyly says: 'Rosicrucians are normal men and women. Perhaps some …
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NASA-Ames Exploration Center
A few miles southeast of Palo Alto, the NASA-Ames Exploration Center sits at the north side of Moffett Field. The research center here has contributed to discoveries in hyper-velocity flight, and its gigantic wind tunnel is still used for advanced aerospace research. A one-third scale model of a space shuttle is out front. Inside is a Mercury capsule, a moon rock, astronaut suits and the Immersive Theater with a circular screen that shows awesome footage from the ongoing Mars mission.
Turn off Hwy 101 at the Moffett Field exit and turn left immediately in front of the main gate to reach the visitors center.
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Apple Jack's Inn
Inland of Pescadero, large stretches of the hills are protected in a patchwork of parks that, just like the coast, remain remarkably untouched despite the huge urban populations only a short drive to the north and east. Heading east toward Palo Alto, Hwy 84 winds through thick stands of redwood trees. Along the way is the tiny township of La Honda, 9 miles east of San Gregorio State Beach, and several local parks with hiking and mountain-biking opportunities. La Honda's Apple Jack's Inn, housed in an old blacksmith's shop, is a rustic, down-home bar offering live music on weekends and lots of local color.
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Stanford University
Sprawled over 8200 leafy acres, Stanford University was established by Leland Stanford, one of the Central Pacific Railroad's 'Big Four' founders and a former governor of California. When the Stanfords' only child died of typhoid during a European tour in 1884, they decided to build a university in his memory. Stanford University opened in 1891, just two years before Leland Stanford's death, but the university grew to become a prestigious and wealthy institution.
The campus was built on the site of the Stanfords' horse-breeding farm, and as a result, Stanford is still known as 'The Farm.'
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Hoover Tower
East of the Main Quad, the 285ft-high Hoover Tower offers superb views of the campus. The tower houses the university library, offices and part of the right-wing Hoover Institution on War, Revolution & Peace. At the entrance level there are exhibits on President Herbert Hoover, who was among the first class of students to attend Stanford in 1891. The ride to the top costs around US$2/US$1 per adult/child.
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Almaden Quicksilver County Park
There are several parks in the hills around San Jose, each laced with a network of walking and cycling trails. Almaden Quicksilver County Park is south of town at the site of the old New Almaden mercury mine. Don't eat fish from the reservoirs, but do check out the trails, spring wildflower displays and mining museum, open Friday to Sunday. From San Jose, head south via the Almaden Expressway.
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Rodin Sculpture Garden
Immediately south of the Cantor Center for Visual Arts is the open-air Rodin Sculpture Garden, with a large collection of sculpture by Auguste Rodin, including reproductions of his towering Gates of Hell. Dotted around the campus is more sculpture, all detailed in the free Guide to Outdoor Sculpture leaflet, available at the museum or at www.stanford.edu/dept/ccva.
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Tech Museum of Innovation
You don't know the meaning of interactive until you've been to the 'Tech' Museum of Innovation, possibly the slickest museum on earth. You'll see bright and shiny exhibits on robotics, genetics and animation, with lots of cartoon characters hopping around in them. It's all like being dunked in a neon-bright, Nickelodeon-inspired pool of warm liquid silicon.
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Electric Light Tower
Electric Light Tower The centerpiece is a half-scale replica of the 237ft-high 1881 Electric Light Tower. The original tower was a pioneering attempt at street lighting, intended to illuminate the entire town center. It was a complete failure but, lights or not, was left standing as a central landmark until it toppled over in 1915 due to rust and wind.
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Stanford Walking Tours
Free one-hour walking tours of the campus depart from Memorial Auditorium daily at 11:00 and 15:15, except during the winter break (mid-December through early January) and some holidays.
Parking can be a real pain. Meters are around US$2 per hour, and if carrying that much change sounds unwieldy, buy an all-day parking permit from VIS.
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Waves Smokehouse & Saloon
Waves serves barbecue platters and burgers in an Old West-style saloon and former brothel dating from 1873. If you're not hungry, a drink in the historic bar, where stained glass and dark wood prevail, will take you back to a time when Post St bustled with all manner of sin and commerce. At night there's music, dancing and karaoke.
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San Jose Museum of Art
The city's central art museum is one of the Bay Area's finest, with a strong permanent collection of 20th-century works and a variety of imaginative changing exhibits. The main building started life as the post office in 1892, was damaged by the 1906 earthquake and became an art gallery in 1933. A modern wing was added in 1991.
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Plaza de Cesar Chavez
This leafy square in the center of downtown, part of the original plaza of El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, is the oldest public space in the city. It's named after Cesar Chavez - founder of the United Farm Workers, who lived part of his life in San Jose - and is surrounded by museums, theaters and hotels.
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California Theatre
This landmark venue has undergone a thorough renovation and its absolutely stunning Spanish interior is cathedral worthy. It is home to Opera San Jose, Symphony Silicon Valley and an ongoing classic film series. This is one venue for the city's annual film festival, Cinequest, held in late February or early March.
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Red Barn
Red Barn, part of Leland Stanford's original farm, stands just west of campus. It's here that Eadweard Muybridge, under patronage of Leland Stanford, photographed moving horses in a study that led to the development of motion pictures. Hiking and biking trails lead from the barn into the foothills west of campus.
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Children's Discovery Museum
This Downtown tech museum for kids has hands-on science and space displays, plenty of nifty toys and some cool play-and-learn areas such as the kooky 'Alice's Wonderland'. The museum is on Woz Way, which is named after Steve Wozniack, the co-founder of Apple and now a fifth-grade teacher.
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Duarte's Tavern
Duarte's Tavern is like going home for dinner. It has been run by the same family for three generations. The menu is basic roadhouse fare: chops, steaks, deep-fried seafood, French dip sandwich, burgers and fries. There is a salad on the menu somewhere, but you'll have to look closely.
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