8th December San Francisco

Today I woke up fairly early as my body clock is still on New York time, but also because I had an early night last night. It gave me plenty of time to have a good breakfast before I headed for my Alcatraz tour. The hotel has a Denny's restaurant inside it which is more than sufficient for breakfast. I went up to the tour office and picked up my ticket, boarded the bus and went down to the Pier where the Alcatraz tour leaves from. It is about a 20 min ferry ride over to the island. Alcatraz has served the army as a fortress and military prison, and the Department of Justice as a maximum-security federal penitentiary. Today, this once-desolate island in the centre of San Francisco Bay is a national parkland with historic gardens, tidepools, bird colonies, and bay views beyond compare. When you get off the ferry you walk up the hill to the cellhouse at the top of the island, about 0.4km and a climb which is equivalent to a 13-story climb. On the way up to the cellhouse you see the Guardhouse and Guard Tower, the Miltary Chapel, the Water Tower and the Military Morgue. Once up at the cellhouse you pick up an audio guide which is presented by former Alcatraz inmates, correctional officers and residents as they reminisce about life on Alcatraz. Alcatraz was transferred from the War Department to the Department of Justice and reopened as a federal penitentiary in 1934. Alcatraz is best known for it's notorious criminals, including - Al "Scarface" Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert Stroud the "Birdman of Alcatraz" and Alvin"Creepy" Karpis...but it actually housed 1,545 men. Most of the inmates were men who had proven to be problems in other prison populations. The best known escape at Alcatraz was in June 1962, when Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin slipped into the water. They used raincoats as floatation devices and were presumably bound for San Francisco. Although their bodies were never found, it was assumed that they had drowned. They were never found and presumed drowned because at the time the authorities didn't believe anyone can swim that far. However many people today have in fact swam between Alcatraz and San Francisco...including a 7 year old...so it is possible! Increasing maintenance and operating costs led U.S. Attoney General Robert F. Kennedy to close Alcatraz in 1963. Prisoners were transferred to other federal correctional facilities, and Alcatraz was left to the care of a lone custodian. Today many parts of the island are closed to the public because they are in a state of disrepair and it is unsafe to go there. It really is an interesting place and I can imagine how isolating it must have felt especially at times like New Year when the sounds of parties could be heard drifting across the bay to Alcatraz. I then headed back to the ferry and back to the mainland to join the afternoon tour of San Francisco. I had half an hour to kill so I walked up to Pier 39 and had a quick look at the sea lions who began 'hauling out' in Pier 39's West Marina shortly after the 1989 San Francisco Loma Prieta earthquake. 

I then joined the afternoon tour of San Francisco and the first place we went was the Golden Gate Bridge, a must see on a visit to San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the "Golden Gate" which is the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. Construction on the bridge began on January 5 1933 and was completed in April 1937 at a cost of around $35 million. The weight of the roadway is hung between two cables that pass through the two main towers and are fixed in concrete at each end. Each cable is made of 27,572 strands of wire. There are 129,000km of wire in the main cables and the bridge has about 1,200,000 rivets. The bridge is popular with pedestrians and cyclists and was built with walkways on either side of the six vehicle traffic lanes. The colour of the bridge is officially an orange vermillion called 'international orange'. The colour was selected because it complements the natural surroundings and enhances the bridge's visibility in fog.  Next we stopped at Lands End, a park within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. There we stopped to look at Seal Rock where the sea lions from the Bay Area used to haul out on. Since September 1989 the number of sea lions on Seal Rock has decreased and the number on Pier 39 has increased. Some people speculate that the sea lions moved to the docks because of the earthquake and that they feel safer inside the Bay. We could also see the ruins of the Sutro Baths. They were a privately owned indoor swimming pool complex built in the late 19th century. A visitor to the baths not only had a choice of seven different swimming pools - one fresh water and six salt water baths ranging in temperatures - but visitors could also visit a museum, a concert hall that had seating for 8000 and at one time an ice rink. The baths closed due to high maintenance costs in 1966 and not long after a fire burned down the building and it was abandoned. Then we went to Twin Peaks and had spectacular views over San Francisco. After here we continued our tour of San Francisco but we were not able to stop anywhere else so we could only see the rest of the sights from the bus. The bus was also not able to go down some streets as some streets are clearly marked with signs saying 'no tour buses' or 'no tour bus stopping'...mainly the nice parts of town where the residents have complained. Some of the highlights pointed out to us included many streets where different movies were filmed, Chinatown, and the Victorian homes or 'painted ladies' as they are called. 

Once the tour was finished I walked down to Pier 39 to have a look at it at night and to get some dinner. I tried Boudin's Clam Chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. The chowder was nice but the bread was very heavy and I couldn't get through the top part they scooped out let alone the bread bowl! I also went to have another look at the sea lions. Although it was dark you could still make them out. They are such time wasters...you could stand and watch them for hours! One seal was fiercely guarding his space and two other seal repeatedly kept coming back at him and every time he managed to knock both of them back into the water! After that I walked to Ghirardelli Square to the Ghirardelli Chocolate shop and cafe to try their famous Hot Fudge Sundae...and yep it was pretty good. Then it was back to the hotel to try and catch up on some blogging!