The hook
A Civil War fort tucked directly under the Golden Gate Bridge, with the great arch overhead built specifically so the fort could stay.
01Why it's worth it
A four-story brick fortress finished in 1861, the only one of its kind on the West Coast, sitting at the waterline right where the bridge now leaps across the strait. It never fired a shot in anger, and rifled artillery made it obsolete almost as soon as it was done, so it survives as a nearly untouched Civil War relic. When the Golden Gate was designed in the 1930s the plan was to demolish it, until the chief engineer decided the masonry was too fine to lose and rebuilt his design with the big arch over it to save it. Standing in the empty gun galleries with the bridge roaring overhead and the bay slapping the seawall is one of the strangest overlaps in the city, and it costs nothing. Hitchcock filmed the fall in "Vertigo" right here.
02How to experience it
It's free and takes about an hour. Check for the candlelight evening tours and the occasional Civil War reenactments, which are the versions worth timing a visit around. Dress warm; the spot funnels wind straight off the Gate.