It is above all the good climate and the unique landscape that invites visitors to linger a while.
They will also permit a gauzy kind of view, but not enough to encourage visitors to linger.
For much of the year, visitors linger by the museum's glass esplanade entry to watch the fountains.
People left food for the visiting spirits, but they put out their fires to make sure the dangerous visitors did not linger there.
Later, after a video about Olmsted's life and work, visitors can linger in the small conservatory overlooking the lawn.
In the long northern evenings, visitors may linger over a meal or a drink on one of the restaurants' terraces.
"People really get into it," he said, adding that some visitors linger for hours looking for their homes or city landmarks.
He gets grumpy when visitors linger too long.
After the dishes were cleared, some visitors lingered, reading books about marine life from the center's small library.
There were no deliberate markings here, though; visitors hadn't lingered long enough to make them.