Over the Hill and Far Away……….

We leapt out of bed bright and early today, ready to get to Pier 33 for our trip to Alacatraz. Outside our hotel room a car was about to be towed away and we watched the process with morbid interest. A parking warden rolled up in a little, white, three-wheeled car and filled out various forms until the tow-truck arrived. It was all very efficient and it was nice to see someone who was clearly enjoying his work.

We could have watched it all day but we had prisons to visit so we set off on foot for the waterfront. The boat ride to the island is about 15 minutes and there are great views of the bay, the bridges across it and the city itself.

The prison was a salutary reminder that bank robbery, or indeed tax evasion, was probably not an advisable lifestyle choice in mid-twentieth century America (or at least it wasn’t if you got caught at it). Still it was nice to feel we were walking in the steps of such illustrious predecessors as Alphonse Capone and Creepy Karpis.

Probably the worst thing about being incarcerated there was the sights and sounds of the free world just a mile or so across the bay. Apparently the distance between the island and the San Francisco shore is swimmable, and people do regularly do it although you have to get the tide just right and you have about 40 minutes before hypothermia sets in.

Anyway, tempting as it might have been, we opted to get the boat back rather than swim. We then walked up to the cablecar terminus and caught the car back to the other end of the line which is quite close to our hotel. The system is an interesting combination of a tourist attraction and a perfectly functional means of public transport that doesn’t seem to have changed much for about 100 years.

Just for a change, we stopped off at a bar on our way back to the hotel and got talking to an Australian chap who was taking a month off from his job as the “sound engineer” in a strip club in Perth to go surfing in Mexico (which he reckoned was much better than on the Pacific coast here). He had called in to San Francisco on the way to see what it was like. Unfortunately we forgot to get his details as he would have been a very useful contact should we ever wish to watch exotic dancers in Western Australia.

This evening we decided to eat tapas – in homage to Don Gaspar de Portola and others who claimed this area for Spain in the 18th century – or maybe just because we like tapas. Anyway it was a very nice meal. We ordered oysters but they’d run out so we got a complimentary portion of pig’s ears instead! These really were pig’s ears and were rather like slightly upmarket pork scratchings. Mark’s witty comment about silk purses elicited a polite but clearly uncomprehending chuckle from the waitress.
Tomorrow we are back on the road to some place in the back of beyond which Mark tells me is the “marijuana capital” of the USA and which boasts a “cannabis college”! Further updates will follow in due course if I’m not too stoned!

Having been gently lulled to sleep by the music from the Moroccan restaurant next door and the sound of police sirens, not to mention the various unpleasant noises emanating from within the room itself, we were well rested and up at the crack of dawn this morning.

We made our way up to the sixth floor of the hotel where we enjoyed the generous complimentary breakfast of toast and jam while taking in the spectacular views of the side wall of the building next door. Thus fortified we set of to explore San Francisco.

The first objective was to get to Pier 33 on the harbour where we picked up our tickets for the trip to Alactraz tomorrow. As you probably know, San Francisco is built on a series of hills so there were quite a few steep climbs and descents to negotiate along the way. After that we walked along the waterfront to Fisherman’s Wharf which, as the name suggests, used to be the centre of the local fishing industry – and it still is to an extent – although the wharf is now largely given over to cafes and gift shops. The local delicacy is Dungeness crab, of which more later.

We continued to follow the bay shore around towards the Golden Gate Bridge which took us through the Marina district, a very affluent yuppie enclave where very expensive houses look out across Marina Boulevard to Marina Green and, unsurprisingly, the Marina – where they all park their yachts. The area was full of joggers, cyclist and tourists, some of whom were in strange little yellow, two-stroke, three-wheeled cars which can be hired in town and give the occupants a running commentary on their route.

Having seen the bridge (which we will be riding over on our way out of here on Wednesday) and posed for the obligatory photograph we retraced our steps to Fisherman’s Wharf. Deciding we had had our exercise for the day we thought we were entitled to treat ourselves to a couple of sandwiches stuffed with Dungeness crab that we had noticed being sold at a stall earlier in the day. They turned out to be a massive disappointment as despite the amount of crab that was undoubtedly in them they only tasted of chives and mayonnaise. We noticed that even the seagulls who were harassing other diners seemed uninterested in what we had to offer!

After that we made our way back uphill and called in at the tramway museum which was fascinating. The streetcars are propelled by steel cables which run for miles under the streets and the winding gear still operates from the museum building.

We then stopped to quench our thirst at an Irish pub which sold mostly British/Irish imported brews but also had a couple of nice “domestic” beers. There was a slightly embarrassing misunderstanding when we came to settle up and thought that the barman was quoting us a price for the purchase of the freehold of the building. However he assured us that this was was the normal price for beer in the city and would have been significantly more had we indulged in exotic imported delicacies such as Newcastle Brown or Stella.

The rest of the day has been spent in a little light shopping and a meal in a restaurant in China Town. We were a bit disappointed (a word that seems to crop up quite often in relation to the food out here) that the variety and quality of Chinese food on offer seems very much the same as we would find back home. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with Chinese food in the UK but we had wondered if the large and long-established Chinese community out here might have offered more variety.

We are now back in the hotel room and listening to the sounds of police sirens and angry raised voices in the street outside. We may have to pop out in a minute and and ask them to keep the noise down……….