Day 15: San Francisco - "You know, this holidays you've actually surprised me with how smart you are"

---

Today started very well - with a sleep in and a comfy bed. Our first activity for the day, a trip out to the island of Alcatraz, didn't require us to be anywhere until 9am either. Easy.

The weather here in San Francisco is actually way cooler than it has been everywhere else. I think this might be the first time in over a week that we've been in temperatures under 40 degrees. Maybe that will help ease us back into the Sydney winter that we return to in just a few days. In the meantime though, I was very glad to have taken my jacket - the winds on the boat out to the island were icy cold!

Taking the audio tour around the legendary Alcatraz is pretty interesting. And they have some fun souveniers too. If you are in San Francisco its worth a look, if only because (as we later found out), there isn't a whole lot else to do.

Upon returning to the mainland, Gerry set out on the 45 minute drive to Dublin to collect his phone, whilst Craig, Stu and I spent some time in the shopping area near Union Square. I left the boys in search of what I had been promised was a great coffee shop. Blue Bottle at 66 Mint street lived up to the hype and more. Perhaps the fact that I haven't had any coffee for the past two weeks was factor, but it was absolutely the best coffee I've had in a good while.

Our day in San Francisco ended with a walk right along the bayside tracks for a few kilometres to get a good photo of the bridge. This was only partly planned - a fortuitous error in navigation led us to the starting point of the walk. Trekking through the sand, along cliff tops, through ritzy suburbs where Robin Williams used to live (a chatty resident pointed his house out) and finally ending up on the very long Baker beach, we could see that the view from up close was going to be something to remember. And so, we continued along the beach with our little walk, Stu and Craig leading they way and Gez and I straggling a little at the back. The view from the far end of the beach was certainly far more dynamic than we expected. Mostly because we didn't expect to find ourselves on a nudist beach. Take a look a the photo Craig took of the bridge below though. It's beautiful, complete with a full moon.

Despite being in shorts and t-shirts, our day ended with a seafood dinner at a fancy restaurant where the highlights were a whole fresh crab (and associated crab crackers to into it with), and lessons in table manners lessons from Craig.

Tomorrow it's off to Los Angeles via Santa Cruz (aka Santa Carla for you Lost Boys fans).

---

Photos

The bridge and Baker Beach in the foreground.
Note the guy getting out of the water. All I can say is I didn't take this one...