San Francisco - Part 3

As we wanted to visit ‘the Crookedest Street’, we took the bus from Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Fran, and ended up walking much further than we’d anticipated.   I don’t think the photograph shows just how steep Lombard Street actually is.

Once at the top, and having got our breath back, we had the most fantastic views across the Bay and San Fran.

We watched the cars as they drove down the ‘Crookedest Street’ it’s so steep it was hard to take photographs.

Cars are allowed to drive down the street although I can’t imagine trying to drive our truck round those twists and turns.   Needless to say there were lots of tourists about.    By this time we’d had enough walking so we took the cable car down, it stopped conveniently close to a Starbucks, excellent!

On the day of our trip to Alcatraz we took the early morning ferry from Sausalito, the sun was rising over Angel Island and we had fantastic views of the bridge and Alcatraz.   We probably had better views of Alcatraz from the Sausalito ferry than we got from the Alcatraz ferry.

Our first stop was Angel Island State Park, as it’s only accessible by boat there are no hotels on the island only campsites; it’s a lovely place.   A narrated tram tour around the island was part of our trip.   The island has an interesting history. 

At various times it has been, among other things, an immigration station and a military Fort, on our tram trip around the island we saw the remains of some gun emplacements.   During both the Civil War and the Spanish American War, Angel Island was considered a strategic location from which to protect San Francisco.   In WWII Angel Island was used as an internment camp for Japanese Americans.

After our trip we had a short time to have a look around but not enough time to go very far.   We took our coffee to a quiet bench where we could enjoy the warm sunshine and watch the sail boats.   Quite honestly I’d’ve been quite happy to spend the whole day there.

Re-boarding the ferry we continued to Alcatraz, which was far from quiet as it was absolutely heaving with people.   Even on a lovely sunny day it’s a grim, forbidding place.  

When we arrived the ranger gave us a short overview, after that you could either walk, or take a trolley if you needed to, up to the cell block.

Once inside we picked up our audio-tour guides and followed the self-guided tour around the prison. 

Walking through the cells we learned about some of the convicts, including Al Capone (1934 – 1939) who were imprisoned there.   Armed prison guards patrolled from galleries high above the cells.

Many people tried to escape; all apart from 3 were caught and they were assumed to have drowned in the frigid waters of the bay.   As their bodies were never found there are tales of them having survived and reached the mainland. 

Alcatraz was home to some of the very worst criminals in the US so we were surprised to learn that the wives and children of the prison guards felt perfectly safe living on the island. 

One of the watch towers.

It was an interesting trip and I’m glad we went, but I’m not sure it’s somewhere I’d want to revisit.

Have fun, we are!