Alcatraz Island
After a brief breakfast at the hotel we power-walked down to Pier 33 to get ready to board our ferry to Alcatraz Island. Ben and Julie had already done a pre-breakfast jog to check out the area and do a bit of reconnaissance for us (so energetic!) The island was so interesting and it was a beautiful sunny day so we got fantastic views from the top of the hill, back over San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. We did the audio tour through the cell block and are now authorities on everything that happened in the penitentiary in its entire history! It was really cool and the kids loved sitting in the cells and checking out the solitary confinement cells. Ben had Will convinced that if he didn’t behave himself he’d be locked in overnight! We were fascinated by the story of the guys that dug their way out using spoons and Maisy particularly liked the story of the attempted escape using “heads” fashioned out of soap, concrete and paint.
Toby, Sophie and Emily became junior park rangers and filled out their ranger activity books on their way around the island.
On our walk to the ferry we’d seen a bakery where they made little turtles and crabs out of bread. You could watch the bakers through the giant glass windows, so we decided to go back and have lunch there and sample them. They were delicious! Then, on the advice of a fellow-Australian traveller that we’d met at our hotel, we took the Blue Bus tour all around the city. It was an open top bus which was doubly cool! Our driver, Mike, added his own laugh-a-minute, informative commentary and he was lots of fun. We got a really good look around at the whole city and we’d highly recommend the Blue Bus! We stopped in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, drove through Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park and Chinatown. While we were in the open top bus, we also took another…ride into the… danger zone…with the fighter jets zooming overhead again! At one stage they came so close we could even see the pilot inside! They are so AWESOME! It was such a great atmosphere, with people gathered on all the rooftops to watch the jets. Everyone was waving to us as our bus drove past! Will got his own mini fighter jet and thought that was very cool. Maisy wasn’t keen on the noise!
Tonight we had dinner at “San Francisco’s Best Pizza Restaurant” and the whole restaurant was sitting glued to the flatscreen to watch their beloved Giants take on the Atlanta Braves. Every time the Giants scored a home run the restaurant erupted with cheers! The whole city is revved up about this match. Ross is just watching the end of it now and it’s a bit of a nail-biter!
