I didn’t realize Alcatraz was in the bay just outside of San Francisco until I visited for the first time back in 2008. Wow, that’s not too far off either! Since then I’ve wanted to go, so when Nita was in town visiting this past weekend and suggested it I jumped right on board. We snagged some tickets on AlcatrazCruises.com for a 2:20PM trip out on Sunday. We grabbed some lunch at Mijita (yum, fish tacos and a Mexican coke!) in Ferry Building and took a nice walk outside the pier. After that we hopped on a streetcar and headed down to Pier 33 to board, and while in line got one of those silly in-front-of-picture photos of the three of us:
Then it was on to the boat!
Amusingly, the last time I visited a prison museum it was with MJ and Nita. Just like the last time we visited such a place we had amazing weather, even when we were out on the bay the chill was quite tolerable, and most of the day I was quite comfortable carrying my jacket.
The first part of the tour has you walking up to the top of the island to pick up the audio tours and enter the prison. The audio tour was was well done and took us all around the inside of the prison, from the blocks to the library to the kitchen, describing escape attempts and telling other stories from when the prison was in operation.
One particularly amusing portion of the trip out to the island was when one of the park staff showed a crowd of us the locking mechanism on the cell doors, and I got a video of it!
Following that, MJ asked him if he could see the mechanism (all mechanical, no electric!) up close, so he opened up one of the ground level boxes to give us a peek:
Pretty neat! But as the tour guides and welcome video were keen to point out, a prison is not all of the history or wonder of the island. Indeed, there were some beautiful gardens and amazing views of the city as well, we had a really nice walk around the grounds after the audio tour was finished.
I have more pictures posted over in a flickr gallery:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157623829012261/
We then took the ferry back to San Francisco. We dropped by Pier 39 to see the sea lions and drop by a couple shops. From there we headed to #9 Fishermen’s Grotto for dinner and were able to watch the sun set over the water – brilliant! Once it was dark we walked up the street and did a bit of touristy shopping, eventually ending up at Ghirardelli Square where we enjoyed some giant sundaes. Yum! By then it was getting pretty late and we headed over to show Nita the cable cars, and take one home!
I love cable cars. Love love love them. In spite of the $5 price tag for a one way ticket, need to take them more often. Oh, and I must visit the San Francisco Cable Car Museum when I have a free weekend day. Taking one home was an awesome end to such an excellent day :)