San Francisco Part Two

Part two of San Francisco began with a tour of Alcatraz. Sitting just out from the San Francisco bay, Alcatraz is a prominent, but small, island that holds an immense amount of history. Our tour was truly fascinating, and the island itself is as beautiful as it is interesting. I'll let the photos reveal what this infamous penitentiary is all about.

In the late 60's when Alcatraz prison was closed down, there was a big Native Indian group that occupied the island, hence the writing on the walls. Writing like the above can be found all around the prison.

A shot of north San Francisco bay from Alcatraz. 

More of the writing left from the native Indians.

This little building wasn't connected to the main cell house but it turns out it was the morgue. You could see right inside which was kind of creepy.

Despite being such a prominent and influential prison, Alcatraz was only very small, roughly holding about 220 inmates at a time. In total, I think they only held 1200 inmates, but some of them were repeats so the number was less than it appeared. 

One of three rows of cells in the main cell block. 

A typical cell in Alcatraz.

The only portion of light illuminating the cells inside. 

The prison kitchen

This was Cell Block D which held the worse inmates. The few doors to the right of the photo were solitary confinement cells or "the hole', if you want to use jail terms.

Some of the nasty pasty inmates that were held in Cell Block D, such as Al Capone, and The Birdman of Alcatraz.

This was inside one of the solitary confinement cells. Its looks nice and bright thanks to the camera flash but it was pretty much pitch black, which made it a very eerie place to be.

"The hole". What a lovely place to be. The Birdman spent most of his sentence in this hole in the wall for bad behavior. 

What was once the prison library.

The gun gallery which is where the Alcatraz riot began. Google it, it's pretty interesting.

Downtown San Francisco from a little peep hole in the cell house walls. This little peephole basically gave you a glimpse of what you were missing out on. 

A scale model of Alcatraz Island. 

Back in the day this was the prison wardens house, but the native Indians burnt it down during their occupation of Alcatraz Island.

The communication/guard room.

View of the lighthouse and the wardens house from the base of the island.

This just shows you how close San Francisco was to Alcatraz, or the other way round. It was only 1.5 mile swim across, but the icy waters will kill you before you make it. What a stunning view of the city though. 

This massive sign at the very point of Alcatraz island was basically deterring anyone from aiding others from escaping prison. 

Our little ship that took us to and from the island.

Of all the amazing stories of escape and seeing the general conditions of the prison, my favorite part of Alcatraz was the unofficial tagline describing the penitentiary itself (described by prisoners). Famously quoted, "If you break the rules, you go to prison. If you break the rules in prison, you go to Alcatraz". It was a very powerful summation of what Alcatraz represented and how it was perceived by civilians and inmates alike.

After our tour around "The Rock" we had a last wander around Fisherman's Wharf to get some food and some last minute souvenirs.

We had to get one last glimpse of the ridiculous amount of seals at the wharf. They actually stunk really bad this time we visited so we left pretty much straight away.

Fisherman's wharf. 

After our long day walking around Alcatraz and Fishermans Wharf, we decided to head to the Golden Gate Bridge look out point. A couple of buses and some long walks later we finally arrived, at the perfect time as well.... just as the sun was beginning to set.

Downtown in the distance. Just shows you how far away the golden gate is. 

This is the road our hotel was on, you could actually see our hotel just past the H & M building. It was such a great location, especially with the cable car out the front and shops either side. 

Being our last night we had to go and get some more good Chinese which involved another ride on the cable car.

It was actually crazy fun riding on the side of the cable car. Even though it didn't go very fast, it was nonetheless somewhat exhilarating. 

Our little hotel room right in the heart of downtown San Fran. Please ignore the messiness, we were in the middle of packing as we were leaving the next day.

Typical smoke coming out of the manhole. 

A couple of cable cars waiting to take passengers. 

On our last day in San Fran before we had to go to the airport, we decided to enjoy the nice weather and head out to the burbs to get some nice food and some more Smitten Ice Cream.

Just a little hot dog stand. 

After a nice brunch and some ice cream it was beer time. Conveniently enough a small outdoor beer garden was right next to Smitten, serving out of a shipping container. 

The little beer garden, out the front of the shipping container.

Typically, I had to get some Clam Chowder. Its kind of a thing in San Francisco,  or more so Fisherman's wharf. 

So that was San Franciso, hopefully you can now understand why we loved it so much. It just had this vibe, this edge, a coolness and/or hip feeling about it without being hipster, which is a very important thing. Lucky for us, our next stop is Seattle, which actually carried a similar vibe, despite raining and being cold 24 hours a day, for the 3 days we were there. But more on that later.

So until then, only 4 more sleeps!
Kristian & Lauren.