Alcatraz

| call center 8am-7pm, ferries depart from Pier 33 every half hour 9am-3:55pm, night tours 6:10pm & 6:45pm

Alcatraz: for almost 150 years, the name has given the innocent chills and the guilty cold sweats. Over the years it’s been the nation’s first military prison, a forbidding maximum-security penitentiary and disputed territory between Native American activists and the FBI. No wonder that first step you take off the ferry and onto ‘the Rock’ seems to cue ominous music: dunh-dunh-dunnnnh! It all started innocently enough back in 1775, when Spanish lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala sailed the San Carlos past the 12-acre island he called Isla de Alcatraces (Isle of the Pelicans). In 1859 a new post on Alcatraz became the first US West Coast fort, and soon proved handy as a holding pen for Civil War deserters, insubordinates and those who had been court-martialed. Among the prisoners were Native American scouts and ‘unfriendlies, ’ including 19 Hopis who refused to send their children to government boarding schools where speaking Hopi and practicing their religion were punishable by beatings. By 1902 the four cell blocks of wooden cages were rotting, unsanitary and otherwise ill-equipped for the influx of US soldiers convicted of war crimes in the Philippines. The army began building a new concrete military prison in 1909, but upkeep was expensive and the US soon had other things to worry about: WWI, financial ruin and flappers. When the 18th Amendment to the Constitution declared selling liquor a crime in 1922, rebellious Jazz Agers weren’t prepared to give up their tipple – and gangsters kept the booze coming. Authorities were determined to make a public example of criminal ringleaders, and in 1934 the Federal Bureau of Prisons took over Alcatraz as a prominent showcase for its crime-fighting efforts. ‘The Rock’ averaged only 264 inmates, but its roster read like an America’s Most Wanted list. A-list criminals doing time on Alcatraz included Chicago crime boss Al ‘Scarface’ Capone, dapper kidnapper George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, hot-headed Harlem mafioso and sometime poet ‘Bumpy’ Johnson, and Morton Sobell, the military contractor found guilty of Soviet espionage along with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Today, first-person accounts of daily life in the Alcatraz lockup are included on the award-winning audio tour provided by Alcatraz Cruises. But take your headphones off for just a moment, and notice the sound of carefree city life traveling across the water: this is the torment that made perilous escapes into rip tides worth the risk. Though Alcatraz was considered escape-proof, in 1962 the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris floated away on a makeshift raft and were never seen again. Security and upkeep proved prohibitively expensive, and finally the island prison was abandoned to the birds in 1963. Native Americans claimed sovereignty over the island in the ’60s, noting that Alcatraz had long been used by the Ohlone as a spiritual retreat, yet federal authorities refused their proposal to turn Alcatraz into a Native American study center. Then on the eve of Thanksgiving, 1969, 79 Native American activists broke a Coast Guard blockade to enforce their claim. Over the next 19 months, some 5600 Native Americans would visit the occupied island. Public support eventually pressured President Richard Nixon to restore Native territory and strengthen self-rule for Native nations in 1970. Each Thanksgiving Day since 1975, an ‘Un-Thanksgiving’ ceremony has been held at dawn on Alcatraz, with Native leaders and supporters showing their determination to reverse the course of colonial history. After the government regained control of the island, it became a national park, and by 1973 had already become a major draw. Today the cell blocks, ‘This Is Indian Land’ water-tower graffiti and rare wildlife are all part of the attraction. Tickets should be booked two weeks or more in advance – especially for the popular night tour – so plan your escape now.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 3rd St | 11:00-17:45 Mon-Tue & Fri-Sun, to 20:45 Thu, from 10:00 Jun-Sep

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) was destined from the start in 1935 to be an eclectic, unconventional museum. But when it moved into architect Mario Botta’s light-filled brick box in 1995, it became clear just how far this museum was prepared to push the art world. The new museum showed its backside to New York and leaned full-tilt towards the western horizon, taking risks on then-unknowns like Matthew Barney and his poetic videos involving industrial quantities of Vaseline, and Olafur Eliasson’s outer-space installations that distort all sense of reality. Finally SFMOMA had room to launch international traveling shows by squeegee-wielding German painter Gerhardt Richter and great postwar Japanese photographers such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama. The 1995 reopening coincided with the tech boom, and new media art took off in the SFMOMA galleries at roughly the same time as new technologies in nearby South Park.

Collectors took notice of this new direction, and donations and promised gifts have begun transforming SFMOMA’s holdings to a multistory collection with room for emerging niches: video art, conceptual architecture, wall-drawing installations and relational art. But one constant is SFMOMA’s standout photography collection, which got the jump-start on other museums with works by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Robert Frank, Dorothea Lange and William Klein, and has continued acquiring compelling contemporary works to keep the collection fresh.

There are regular, free gallery tours, but exploring on your own gives you the thrill of discovery, which is what this museum is about. The 3rd-floor photography galleries are the place to begin, then up through the 4th- and 5th-floor major-contemporary exhibits, catching your breath outdoors at the 5th-floor rooftop sculpture garden. From here, work your way down through the galleries via the dramatic stairwell to espresso and strawberry-rhubarb crisp at the ground-floor cafe. Tack on additional time for the excellent SFMOMA shop.

If you can’t swing the admission price, wander into the main atrium for free and see the vibrant comic-book historical murals of Monticello, by Kerry James Marshall, for a quick hit of the MoMa’s curatorial vision.

Golden Gate Bridge

Fort Point Lookout Marine Dr |

Imagine a squat concrete bridge striped black and caution yellow spanning the San Francisco Bay - that's what the US Navy initially had in mind. Luckily, engineer Joseph B Strauss and architects Gertrude and Irving Murrow insisted on a soaring art-deco design and International Orange paint that harmonized with the natural environment. The result is the 1937 Golden Gate Bridge. Cars pay a $6 toll to cross from Marin to San Francisco; pedestrians and cyclists stroll the east sidewalk for free.

California Academy of Sciences

55 Concourse Dr | 9:30am-5pm Mon-Sat, 11am-5pm Sun

Finally the California Academy of Sciences has a museum suited to its fascinating collection of 38,000 natural wonders and the occasional freak of nature. Under the wildflower-covered ‘living roof’ of Renzo Piano’s LEED-certified green building, butterflies flutter through a four-storey glass rainforest dome, a rare white alligator stalks a swamp, and Pierre the Penguin paddles his massive new tank in the African Hall. In the basement aquarium, kids duck inside a glass bubble to enter an eel forest, find Nemos in the tropical-fish tanks and squeal to pet starfish in an aquatic petting zoo. The views here are sublime: you can glimpse into infinity in the Planetarium or ride the elevator to the roof for panoramas over Golden Gate Park. Displays throughout the main floor explain conservation issues affecting California’s ecosystem, and you can actually eat those words – the cafeteria sells treats made with local, organically grown ingredients. For an even wilder scene, check the schedule for Thursday evenings when the academy is open late and cocktails are served.

Ferry Building

Market St | 10am-6pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat, 11am-5pm Sun

Other towns have their gourmet ghettos, but San Francisco puts its love of food front and center at the Ferry Building. The once-grand port was overshadowed by a 1950s freeway overpass until 1989, when the freeway turned out to be less than earthquake-proof. The overpass was torn down, and the Ferry Building emerged as the symbol of San Francisco’s pride and joy – not the ferries, but the food.

Aziza

5800 Geary Blvd | 5:30-10:30pm Wed-Mon

Mourad Lahlou's inspiration is Moroccan and his produce organic Californian, but his flavors are out of this world: quail dazzles with huckleberries and cumin-orange glaze, and the prawn tagine (stew) with Meyer lemons is pizzazz in a pot.

Tataki

2815 California St | 11:30am-2pm & 5:30-10:30pm Mon-Thu, 11:30am-2pm & 5:30-11:30pm Fri, 5-11:30pm Sat, 5-9:30pm Sun

Rescue dinner dates and the oceans with sensational, sustainable sushi: silky arctic char drizzled with yuzu-citrus and capers replaces at-risk wild salmon, and the Golden State Roll is a local hero with spicy dive-caught scallop, Pacific tuna, organic apple slivers and edible gold.

Namu

439 Balboa St | 5-10:30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm & 5:30-10:30pm Sat & Sun

SF's unfair culinary advantages – top-notch organic ingredients, Silicon Valley inventiveness and Pacific Rim flair – are showcased in Korean-inspired small plates of buttery kampachi with chili oil and fleur de sel, bacon-wrapped enoki mushrooms, and Niman Ranch Kobe beef with organic vegetables in a sizzling stone pot.

Bloodhound

1145 Folsom St | 4pm-2am

Our favorite SoMa bar feels vaguely Nordic, with white wood, antler chandeliers and fantastic art, including a murder of crows painted on the ceiling. Top-shelf ingredients, but no drink is over-intellectualized. Best Sunday to Thursday, or before midnight on weekends. Killer jukebox.

Triple Crown

1760 Market St | 5:30pm-2am

A storefront bar with adjoining black-box rooms – one with glittering chandeliers, another with a disco-ball dance floor – Triple Crown hosts DJs spinning everything from ‘60s-soul and ‘80s-pop to down-tempo funk and hip-hop. Expect an upbeat crowd of happy locals that love to dance and schmooze. Tuesdays are gay. Call ahead or check website to confirm opening times.

Magic Theatre

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The Magic Theatre is well known for taking risks and staging provocative plays by such playwrights as Bill Pullman, Terrence McNally, Edna O’Brien, David Mamet and longtime playwright-in-residence Sam Shepard. Watch the next generation of playwrights and provocateurs break through in professionally staged works written by teenagers as part of the Young California Writers Project.