SAN FRANCISCO'S TOP ATTRACTIONS: MUSEUMS

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with its 50,000 square feet of exhibit space is the city’s premier high culture museum. It is housed in ultra modern landmark building in the South of Market neighborhood.

This fine art museum in Golden Gate Park has one of the finest collections of early American art as well as an impressive collection of anthropological objects from the Americas and Africa.

The Legion of Honor is home to San Francisco's collection of European Art. It is renowned for its holding of Rodin sculptures, including The Thinker who ponders the big questions in the courtyard of this classical building.

Housed in the Beaux-Arts old city library on Civic Center Plaza, the Asian Art Museum is the largest of its kind outside of Asia. Its comprehensive collection spans from 4,000 BCE to the present time.

The newly expanded California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park has 400,000 square feet of natural history exhibits including a state-of-the-art planetarium.

Filling a huge exhibit hall behind the Palace of Fine Arts (pictured above) the Exploratorium, the ultimate "hands on" science museum, enters its fourth decade as popular as ever.

Since 1852 Wells Fargo has occupied this spot on Montgomery Street where Wells Fargo Bank first opened for business. It is now a history museum that worth a visit for anyone interested in early California history.

The Aquarium of the Bay at the foot of Pier 39 is a living museum that shows visitors what is going on just below the bay's surface. Turns out it is quite a bit, as you see up close from their underwater tunnel.

The Museum of the African Diaspora in the South of Market museum district, is dedicated to the showcasing the accomplishments and struggles of people of African descent around the world..

If you have a taste for the historic and the off beat (and things a little creepy), the Musee Mecanique and its collection of vintage arcade machines may well be worth the visit if you find yourself at Fisherman's Wharf.

The San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design is intimate space dedicated to raising the public's appreciation of the contemporary decorative arts. Its location near Union Square makes it an easy stop for gallery hopper.