Place to see: Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California, United States

About this place:

Originally built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Palace itself is antique architecture - the massive columns dwarf human scale. It's very Arcadian or Picturesque - there's a swan-inhabited man-made lake.

This is what it is now, not what it was then...

The nearby Exploratorium is a science-based art gallery with exhibits designed by some amazing artists that work with natural phenomena like Ned Kahn and Doug Hollis - great on a rainy weekday if you can swing it....