The Mexican Museum is on the Bay, with seagulls calling overhead and ferries and sailboats cruising past.

It is in the former military warehouses of Fort Mason on the San Francisco’s bay. Fort Mason is peace loving art and non-profit colony and includes SFMOMA Artist's Gallery, the Museo Italo Americano, Embark Gallery and most importantly, Sartle!  Time slows down here and it all feels a bit 1910-20s. Back in 1776, the Spanish put up a military base here, which the U.S. gobbled up in 1850. The Museum and its environs make for a good day-out. Boats bob up and down in the marina next door and from Crissy Field you get some of the best views of the Golden Gate Bridge in the whole darn city. It’s so peaceful that his holy peacefulness himself, the Dalai Lama, came to visit.

It’s also the place to eat. Alongside the Museum is one of the best vegetarian restaurants in the city, Greens, the low-key café, Goody’s, and the most intellectual bar you'll ever get to explore, The Interval. Then there’s Lombard Street a few blocks away, with more eats than you can imagine...including gelato. Tempted? There’s more. On Fridays a school of food trucks serve up a heap of top gourmet food at Fort Mason. They are part of Off the Grid and yes, there’s an app.

Across the bare concrete floors and through the heavy iron warehouse doors of the Mexican Museum there’s a small warm lobby and three galleries. It feels like an art gallery because it pretty much is. The Mexican Museum has been looking for a home the last 20 years and the Fort Mason situation is "temporary." Unfortunately each time it has been close to finding a forever home, fate intervened. But we're glad to have them in our neck of the woods...for now.v If all the city hoops are jumped and funding stays put, renovation of a building in the Mission District will start soon. We'll see, and keep you posted.

Even at this smaller than ideal location, the museum is wonderfully stocked. The galleries show a tiny fraction of 12,000 piece collection but it's good stuff. Unlike large, monumental museums where we often rush past 90% of the works and come out exhausted, the Mexican Museum slows time down and you linger, and every artwork makes an impression. They have the Museum of the Mexican diaspora, with all sorts of things in insanely bright and beautiful Mexican colors – masks, poster and stencil art, sculptures, and painting. There's vivid folk art, Day of the Dead skeletons and skulls, Virgin Mary Catholic stuff, and revolutionary and political works. Something por todas las personas.