Fisherman’s Wharf is San Francisco’s most unabashed tourist trap, but the area’s Pier 45 is worth a visit for the near-century-old Musee Mecanique (free admission, coin-operated machines), a collection of antique arcade games, amusement park artifacts and mechanical musical instruments.
Then walk west toward the Golden Gate Bridge, popping into the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park Visitor Center on the ground floor of the swanky Argonaut Hotel. This free museum offers a surprisingly in-depth and nuanced history of the city’s working waterfront. Afterward, stroll to Aquatic Park, where swimmers brave the frigid San Francisco Bay and the park’s bathhouse, now the Maritime Museum (free). Take in its striking streamline moderne art deco exterior, even if you don’t make its 4pm closing time.
Stop into the only-in-San Francisco Long Now futurist society at the lively Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Part cocktail bar, part science-centric museum to the future, the Interval at Long Now has an 8-foot-tall orrery (a mechanical model of the solar system), artwork by musician Brian Eno and bottles of spirits hanging from the ceiling.
