Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
watch the assortment of hot geeks and young engineers working on their latest
creations. There are lots of unexpected bonuses, such as frequent demonstrations
(the day I was there, someone was dissecting cow eyes for a gaggle of rapt kids,
and a few feet away, a terrarium containing a dead rat was rotting away for the
edification of decay science) and occasional evening talks for curious adults (such
as on nanotechnology or string field theory; check the museum's online events cal-
endar for advance word).
If you're weirded out by all those smeary kids touching all those exhibits before
you do, tote some antibacterial wipes. Whatever your germ tolerance, you will not
be bored here.
In the back, closed off within its own structure, the
Tactile Dome
($17 with
admission, ages 7 and up) is a strange enticement, on offer since 1971, making it
a city museum institution. Visitors remove their shoes and then, one at a time and
with plenty of space between them, crawl on hands and knees through a com-
pletely lightless obstacle course, using only their sense of touch to navigate the
slopes, slides, and passageways. The adventure takes about 10 minutes, smells like
feet, and if you're at all claustrophobic, forget it. But you can usually go more than
once, if you're game.
One downside of the place is that you'll almost certainly have to take a bus to
reach it (take no. 30 from Grant Ave.), and because its lunch counter seems geared
to school groups and runs out of food by midafternoon, think about eating before
you go.
The Exploratorium is situated next to the gorgeous
Palace of Fine Arts,
a
colossal, sculpture-laden rotunda and colonnade left over from the Panama-
Pacific Exposition of 1915. Although the name of the place suggests there's much
more to see than there actually is, the neighboring pond is one of the locals'
favorite spots for jogging, picnicking, and photography. It's most beautiful in the
mornings, when it's bathed in eastern light.
Another nearby attraction that's maintained by the Exploratorium is the so-
called
Wave Organ,
located on a jetty that protects the small boat harbor just
north of the museum. It's a collection of 25 pipes made of PVC and concrete that
are embedded in the jetty and submerged in the Bay so that, depending on the
mood of the tides, a slow, eerie free-form music is generated. Sometimes, you
won't hear a thing, but, at the very least, the jetty, which was partly created out of
headstones from a disused cemetery across town, is a lovely place to soak in the
view, including of the Golden Gate Bridge and of the ideal, full-on perspective of
Alcatraz Island. To reach the Wave Organ, walk down Baker Street to the water,
make your way to the end of the jetty by veering left around the boats, and walk
right about 10 minutes along a sometimes-muddy path to the end of the promon-
tory. The Exploratorium is part of the CityPass discount book (p. 98).
Beneath the Golden Gate Bridge's city-side anchor is
Fort Point
(www.nps.gov/fopo; free admission; Fri-Sun 10am-5pm),
a National Park
Service-maintained masonry fort that dates to the Civil War era; there's not a lot
to do there beside learn a few things about how it once operated, and the hours
are funky besides, but the rooftop views of the bridge are insanely spectacular. I
want to thank the bridge's designers for bending over backward to avoid demol-
ishing the fort for a southern anchor. From an era (the 1930s) when dams were
laid and historic sights cleared in the name of progress, it's pretty rare to see the
