'Alcatraz' is Spanish for pelican, but to its inmates it was simply known as 'the Rock'. The West Coast's first lighthouse was built here in 1854, but it...

Built in 1915 to designs by Arthur Brown and John Bakewell, City Hall is the epitome of the Beaux Arts style visible across the whole Civic Center. The...

This 210ft (64m) concrete turret, built by City Hall architect Arthur Brown in 1933, was a gift to the city from the eccentric Lillie Hitchcock Coit, famed...

The spectacular brick-built Fort Point was built between 1853 and 1861 to protect the city from a sea attack. The assault never came; the 126 cannons...

Begun in 1928, this Episcopalian cathedral was once a private mansion. It was later taken over by the church and is, by the standards of most cathedrals in...

There's plenty for history buffs big and small to explore aboard the Jeremiah O'Brien, a veteran of D-Day and the only original ship to sail under its own...

Founded by a tiny band of Spanish missionaries and soldiers in 1776, and completed 15 years later, Mission Dolores is the oldest structure in the city and...

Local architect Bernard Maybeck's pièce de résistance, the Palace is a neo-classical domed rotunda supported by a curved colonnade topped with friezes and...

A bustling tourist trap, all T-shirt shops and traders flogging Celtic art and music boxes, plus street performers, restaurants, a games arcade, a carousel...