San Francisco Bay area is much loved by people with a strong sense of culture and passion for learning.  One of its top attractions and greatest pride is the University of California, where both students and visitors can immensely enjoy an enlightening and stimulating experience.  For sure, you will never run out of museums to visit here.  So put your geek hat on and check out some of the museums around the area.

Up in the sky

To the young and old, those magnificent flying machines never fail to enchant.  In the Oakland Aviation Museum “where West Coast aviation began”, flying fanatics can sit in the cockpit of an actual aircraft and have dinner at the Solent flying boat.  Other than their regular tours, the museum also holds a speaker series where those who would like to go deeper into anything aviation can hear stories and get information from the best resource persons.

If you would like to go farther into the sky, you may visit the Cabot Space & Science Center.  In it are Nellie, Rachel and Leah (three glorious telescopes) and the largest public telescope facility in the country. Visitors can gaze through the telescopes and marvel at the sky.  The center offers interactive exhibits, displays, a planetarium and large-screen shows.  They also hold classes, workshops and summer camps.

Down under water

Seymour Marine Discovery Center at Long Marine Lab is a research and education facility of the University of California, Santa Cruz.  Here you can hold sea creatures like sea stars, sea urchins, hermit crabs and sea anemones—even a shark!  (They assure that it’s a friendly one, of course.)

The museum is like a lab, so visitors can get a better feel of how scientists observe sea creatures.  And like true scientists, the center encourages you to ask questions like “Are anemones plants or animals?” and “How do sea stars with up to 24 arms move?”.

They have an array of activities for the month of August, like the Marine Mammal Research Tour, Younger Lagoon Reserve Tour, and Seaside Crafts at the Seymour Center.  For more information on these events, you may check their calendar of events.

Back on ground

Napa Valley is synonymous to wine, and not just wine, but one of the best wine in the world.  Yet its history and heritage is just as exhilarating and rich, and this is exactly what Napa Valley Museum is striving to show its community and visitors from all over the world.  The museum is “committed to presenting exhibits that will entertain and educate”.

This August, they are holding the Discrepancy: living between war and peace exhibit.  It features visual artworks about daily life and its connection to 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Part of the exhibition is the artistic representation from the veterans in Pathway Home in Napa Valley.