Blogs from Alcatraz, San Francisco, California, United States, North America - page 2

Off to Alcatraz! I was so excited for today, when booking my trip I was deciding whether to fly into LA or San Francisco and I thought that LA would be cheaper, but there wasn't really anything pulling me to visit there. When I found out the flights to San Francisco were the same price, it was a no-brainer. One of the reasons, I wanted to visit was to go to Alcatraz, when I was younger (a lot younger), a co-worker had been and had lent me a book written by one of the former prisoners, I can barely remember his life story now, but since then I've always wanted to visit. And after watching 'The Rock', one of my favourite films when I was a teenager/at uni. I had read online that you needed to ... read more

What a day!!! My alarm woke me up at 6.30, and I dragged myself out of bed, got ready and navigated myself through the streets to catch a cable car. With more unnessercery long videos of the cable car ride (The videos are temporarily out of order on this website but I'll put them up as soon as they fix it!) I made it down to pier 39. This is basically the tourist trap of San Fran, but I love it. Its a vibrant, colourful, tacky and almost fairground like area on the dock. I still had hours before my Alcatraz booking, so at around 7.30am I wandered through the empty pier 39. The locals were all setting things up and I vaguely felt like an intrusive tourist who was just too early. (Like when passengers ... read more

We are all headed out to Bali for Mary's daughter, Mariah, wedding. So included in this year's trip are our children! Before arriving in Bali, we decided to take a 2 day stop over in San Francisco. What an adventure we had to start. From fitting 4 adults and 8 suitcases along with 4 backpacks of 'essentials' into one taxi to Patrick getting up close and personal with TSA (yes, he got the full search!). Poor boy, they thought his carry on of snacks was contraband. Everything settled down after that and we arrive at our San Francisco hotel after 11:00pm.... read more

The Rock Zurück von Yellowstone und Salt Lake City, bin ich nun zum dritten Mal in San Francisco. Bei meinem letzten Aufenthalt habe ich mir mein Ticket nach Alcatraz gesichert (diese sind meistens über Wochen hinaus ausgebucht). Mit dem Boot ging es von San Francisco ("Alcatraz Landing") zur Gefängnis-Insel. Bei der Überfahrt hat man einen guten Blick auf die Golden Gate Bridge, die sich allerdings meistens im Nebel versteckt. Die Insel selbst war über lange Zeit eine Militärbasis, danach Gefängnis, später von Indianern besetzt, die für ihre Rechte protestierten und mittlerweile Museum und Nationalpark. Hat man es einmal auf die Insel geschafft, bekommt man einen Audio-Guide, auf dem ehemalige Häftlinge und Gefängniswärter die Geschichte des Gefängnisses erzählen. Auch eine Demonstration des ausgeklügelten Schließmechanismus wurde gezeig... read more

If you are a true 70's child or a wanna-be long lost Hippy, you need to see this town... Victorian houses, squashed up against each other, so much vibrancy & colour. A city with enormous character & personality...the complete antithesis of Los Angeles, which has none of the above. Did the obligatory tour across the Golden Gate. It was surreal, looking at something in the real that I have grown up looking at only on TV. Alcatraz was amazing. If you ever get here, it's a must. Freezing cold & full of ghosts with famous names..."Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert "The Birdman" Stroud, Al Capone...these guys really did time here. None of them escaped but Clint Eastwood did.... read more