On Saturdays, take a guided tour of San Jose’s oldest structure, the 1797 Peralta Adobe, a relic from California’s Spanish and Mexican periods.Learn about San Jose’s life before silicon chips at the expansive campus of History Park San Jose, an extraordinary indoor/outdoor museum at Kelley Park. Architecture and sports fans will appreciate the glassy modern palace of the SAP Center, home to the San Jose Sharks NHL franchise.Īmong all the shiny newness, you’ll also find pride in the city’s history. At the light and airy San Jose Museum of Art, the spotlight is on contemporary and modern art. Downtown is packed with worthwhile stops, like the ultra-hands-on museum The Tech Interactive, where exhibits focus on innovations in computers, robotics, healthcare, and even space exploration. Mineta San Jose International Airport, you’ll come face-to-face with Space Observer, a 28-foot/7.9-meter-high white-and-chrome robot that waves its propeller-tipped wings while its cameras track your movements through the airport mezzanine.Įven if you arrive by car, you’ll find myriad ways to experience the rebirth of California’s third-largest city as a cutting-edge urban hub. Other weird facts: the mansion has 52 skylights, 47 fireplaces, 40 bedrooms, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 3 elevators, 2 basements, and 13 bathrooms but just one shower.Īrrive by plane and San Jose’s unmistakable techy-ness starts right off the bat. Guided tours let you ponder the heiress’s unusual designs, including doors that open onto blank walls and a stairway that leads straight into a ceiling. Whether spirits gave her pointers or not, Sarah designed one heck of an oddball house. Why the unending, breakneck pace? Because Sarah had been convinced by a medium that all the spirits of the people killed by Winchester firearms had placed a curse on her family and would haunt her forever unless she moved West and built a house to match their specifications, as revealed to her in séances. Construction began on the house in 1884 and continued, almost nonstop, until 1922-racking up a bill of $5.5 million. Perhaps Silicon Valley’s strangest and yet most enduring attraction is Winchester Mystery House, a 160-room Victorian mansion that was owned and built by Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester fortune.
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