While there are several prime spots in the East Bay hills from which to launch your westering gaze, the best is near the top of Euclid Avenue. Simple to get to as well: From Hearst Avenue on the north side of UC Berkeley, turn north onto Euclid. Two miles up, for some unaccountable reason, there’s an empty lot, a break in the screen of trees and houses, and you can park your car along the curb and get out for an unimpeded look. The view is stunning: On a clear day you can see south to San Mateo, north into deepest Marin, west well past the Golden Gate, and the bay is a shimmering slate. Oh, and San Francisco is on full display, too.

Carillon music for ever

Sather Tower Carillon UC Berkeley campus, (510) 643-8723

On a campus full of surprises, the carillon is the biggest. Yes, there are real human beings ringing the 61 bells 307 feet up inside Sather Tower — and the mainly classical repertoire is like nothing this side of Europe. The show goes off at 7:50 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. weekdays; noon and 6 p.m. Saturdays; and runs from 2 to 2:45 p.m. on Sundays. You can even take the elevator up top to watch the carillonneurs in action from 10 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. That’ll set you back $1, unless you have a valid UC Berkeley ID. But you won’t care: The view out to the Golden Gate is worth it.

The Freaks Come Out On Sproul

Although they don't always realize it, UC Berkeley students enjoy a rich and unusual complement to their education. Meandering through campus, our turgid brains filled with scholastic preoccupation, career inopportunity and social intrigue, we pass by Sproul Plaza and witness education like it's never been taught before ... At least not quite like this.

While the term Sproul Plaza is likely to conjure up images of history, democracy and activism, it has also seen its share of apathy, excess and just plain idiocy. But whether you consider Sproul your ideological fatherland, or just a tedious (and often unkempt) territory wedged in between school and the rest of your life, take a moment to savor the Sproul experience before embarking on your final departure from UC Berkeley.

Sproul is not simply where town meets gown in Berkeley, it is a singular cultural dwelling place. The university may have the highest number of leading academic departments in the country, but it also possesses one of the only places in America where politically active nuclear physicists, economists and musicologists can shut down a federally-funded administration building or form a separate nation for a couple of weeks in protest.

The other day at Stanford, Newt Gingrich told an audience at the Hoover Institute that many university professors in this country have very little idea of what actually goes on in the world. I beg to differ, at least at Berkeley. In addition to knowing a hell of a lot about things, like French Medieval peasant costumes, Berkeley professors have the real world right outside their office doors whether they like it or not. In symposiums, labs and libraries, scholars produce some of the most cutting-edge research innovations this world has ever seen. But only in a place like Berkeley can those leading historians and scientists take a few steps and witness the other extreme of culture in its most pure and unadulterated form.

Although the honorable speaker of the house would probably disparage the "reality" of the Sproul shenanigans, the very existence of endless protests, jabbering preachers, cracked-out hackey-sackers and colorful drag queens, continues to push the limits of what constitutes the real world today.

For UC Berkeley students, it is easy to overlook something you encounter everyday. But the often relentless free speech of Sproul Plaza is not only something that many other American university students will never encounter, its characteristics are likely to land you in jail in many places throughout the world.

For a long time, Sproul Plaza was nothing more than passing entertainment for the eye, sequestered to the appropriate place in the back of my mind like some episode of Jerry Springer. But Sproul is not simply for those looking for an audience, Sproul is for all. Yes, you too can be a freak! But whatever it is you're into, I challenge all students at this university to spend an hour under the sun on Sproul before this crucial aspect of their education will no longer be an option.

Best Sproul Plaza Act

Rick Starr

Drummers, evangelists, and the campanile bells vie for the attention of jaded UC Berkeley students at noon. The best reason not to flee the chaos is Rick Starr, 10-year plaza vet. Most lunch hours Starr can be found warbling old Frank Sinatra standards into an unplugged microphone, but he’s been known to take a day off. “If I’m not here tomorrow, I’ll be at a local convalescent home,” he croaks to the passers-by. Ladies and gentlemen, Sinatra has left the plaza.

Telegraph Avenue

Bums on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley

Berkeley is synonymous with Telegraph Avenue. Telegraph is synonymous with young urban dropouts looking for spare change and cigarette butts. An eclectic mix of post-punk, post-hippie, and grunge types congregates between Amoeba Records on the corner of Telegraph and Haste and the overhyped Caffe Mediterraneum, immortalized by Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Like their blitzed brethren in the Upper Haight, the kids on Telegraph occasionally do come up with a good line: One guy asked for donations toward a Wonderbra. “You don’t need one,” a passer-by said. Guess it didn’t work.

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph (at Haste), Berkeley, (510) 845-7852

Cody’s is king of Telegraph’s bookstore strip. That’s because just about every intelligent book in print is for sale within its four walls, the place is well laid out (the travel and fiction sections are great), and the staff is actually helpful. The topper is the adjoining newsstand, which overflows with everything from fashion rags to punk zines to literary journals. Quite simply, Cody’s is better than many libraries and more interactive than any online store.

Best Place to Get Pierced, Tattooed, and Buy Shoes All in One Go

Wicked Co. 2431 Telegraph (at Channing), Berkeley, (510) 883-1055

If this is your fantasy, then with two clicks of the heels of your spongy, powder-blue platforms, you’ll find yourself in Wicked on Telegraph feeling truly naughty. Stride past the Diesel denim and Astroturf purses on the sales rack to get to the real goods — the revamped piercing and tattoo studio is at the back of the store. Everything is clean, professional-looking, and sleek. It’s like entering a funky doctor’s office where everyone is impatient to get in. The occasional thrift-store sophisticate pops in to gauge a look at the labels, but little is cheap, though the tattoos are well-priced.

Berkeley Democracy

Best Place to Watch Democracy in Inaction

Berkeley City Council

When de Tocqueville praised the New England town meeting way back when, he could not have foreseen this. Each Tuesday evening, Berkeley’s City Council — already infamous for its rulings against nukes and oil-company-owned gas stations — gets down to its strange business of debating such weighty topics as public nudity, smoking, pepper spray, and the proper handling of freaks on Telegraph Avenue. The comedy comes not just from the subject matter, though, but from how the council handles each item. Typically, it goes out of its way to be hyperinclusive, making sure that every fool, vagabond, gadfly, solid citizen, and running dog of socialism has been heard from before daring to tender a decision. And then, after hearing from everyone, the council puts off taking a decisive vote and reschedules yet another circus session on the same issue. Somewhere, Madison and Jefferson are giggling in their graves.