DAY 22 - JANE & JESS ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ

We begin the morning with a pretty lousy breakfast at the Days Inn.  Then we drive to the local BART Station to get the train to downtown San Francisco.  We get off at 16th & Mission and our first sight is of lots of homeless people.  We make a hasty retreat from this area to The Castro.  This is the gay area of town where Harvey Milk used to live.  We see the Castro Theatre and get some breakfast from a nearby cafe.  We then got a street car to Union Square and walked to China Town and to the City Lights Book Shop where Jessica bought a copy of Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouak.

We carried on our walk up some very steep San Francisco hills to The Coit Tower (which has great murals inside) and then back down some very steep steps to the Piers.  There are a load of sea lions at pier 39 that apparently arrived after the earth quake of 1989.  Initially the authorities wanted to get rid of them because boats used to dock at this pier but in the end they just let the sea lions stay and the boats had to leave.

 

We then moved on to Fishermans Wharf for lunch at Cioppinos.  Owned by an Italian Family this restaurant is one of the best on Fishermans Wharf.  Jessica had a pasta dish and I had the local crab and shrimp salad with delicious sour dough bread.

We carry on our walking tour of the eastern side of San Francisco to the park area surrounding Fort Mason.  There is a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge from here.  We spend some time resting in the park after our long walk.

By 5pm it is time for our walk back to Pier 33 for our Alcatraz Cruise.  We board the boat at 6.30pm for our night time tour.  We manage to get the top deck of the boat but it is pretty crowded so cannot get the best seats.  It is also getting very cold and windy!



As a special night-tour-treat, the boat circles the island before docking for some good views and photo opportunities of both the island and the cities around it on shore. Arriving back on the solid ground of the rock, we are split into groups for a guided tour up to the cell house. Along the way, we learn about the islands past as a military fort, plus numerous repetitive health and safety rules!

Entering the cell block via the main doors which prisoners would have used, we were provided with the best audio guides I have ever had. As we followed a path around the block, we listened to old guards and prisoners from the Alcatraz jail days telling tales of life in the prison, and the numerous escape attempts from it! It was really cool being here as night fell since the prison took on a dark and spooky atmosphere, especially as it was not that crowded.



We saw the classic 3 storey high cells, the dining room, the warden's room, the office and solitary confinement amongst others. We even got to go inside a solitary cell which was very creepy! There were also great views of the city at night from an outside area we visited. As a special treat for night time tour-ers, we got to visit the hospital wing which is normally closed for visitors. Like something out of a horror movie, we walked down corridors of cracked paint into the old operating room with foreboding metal operating table in the middle lit by a single lantern. Scary!  One of the rangers tells us the story of an inmate who escaped in 1962.  He managed to cut through some window bars in the store room where he works and escapes over the roof of the prison.  When he gets to the sea, he has 30 odd pairs of rubber gloves which he inflates and puts inside a shirt to use as an inflatable device.  He makes it to The Golden Gate Bridge despite nearly being swept away by the cold currents of the water.  Unfortunately he crawls ashore right by a military base and immediately gets arrested and sent  right back to Alcatraz (suffering from severe hypothermia - he has to spend some time in the prison hospital).



After walking back down to the dock in the dark, getting to see the burned down officers rec room and old schoolhouse, we catch the last boat of the night back to shore. Only us and a hardy other 5 or 6 people braved the top deck this time! It was freezing and very windy, but we resolutely enjoyed the view!

Back in San Fran, we caught the BART (their metro system) back, got a Taco Bell drive through on the way back from the station and ate it in our hotel room like true white trash! It was pretty late, so we went to bed to be well rested for our final day...