First stop was the Palace of Fine Arts. The buildings and gardens are really beautiful (see pictures). We walked around and there was a dance competition or something on - so lots of crazy people wearing funny costumes. We saw this one group of guys practicing line dancing - so funny!
The streets and houses here are so different from anything we have seen before. All right next to each other, its really strange. All the buildings are painted in nice bright colours.From there we walked down to the beach where you could see accross to the Golden Gate Bridge. Was nice but really windy. Rochelle saw lots of little dogs she wanted to steal hehe.
We then headed to the 'Full House' house! I'm getting more used to driving over here, which is just as well because driving in San Fran traffic is a bit of a mission. The house is on a small street and all the houses surrounding looked the same - so we weren't to 100% sure which one it actually was. You cant see it in this pic but the road is VERY steep!
Full house house! (we think!?)
After snapping some shots of a few random houses we headed into the city and wandered around the shops. Rochelle did buy some stockings from Bloomingdales, which we given to her in a 'Little Brown Bag' (see photo) which she had seen many a time on Friends. The buildings in the city are really awesome as well. Took LOADS of pictures.
I almost got us into some grief in the city when I took a photo of some shoe shiners hard at work. They spotted me and came after us demanding a tip! We walked away pretty quickly.
Monday Jan 26th (day 8) - Alcatraz was today's destination. The weather was awesome so we were very happy! We walked down to Pier 33 to catch our boat over to Alcatraz Island, only 1 1/4 miles from San Fran. It only took about 10mins on the boat but there were awesome views looking back at the city and the golden gate bridge.
We had a short intro on arrival and were then left to roam the Prison. An audio tour of the cells was the main attraction so up the hill we walked to the centre of the island. It was an awesome tour and gave you a lot of insight into how the prisoners lived and as you can see from the photos the cells were very tiny.
This is the cell of one of the 3 men to ever escape from Alatraz. They pulled out a vent and chipped away at the concrete behind it for years! (you can see the hole in the pic). They/their bodies were never found so no one knows if they got to freedom or not.
When we got back we walked through 'Fishermans Wharf' which has heaps of touristy shops and stuff. And best of all - Sea Lions! There were heaps of them just basking in the sun.
We have more of a solid plan for the next week now -
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are heading to Vegas. Its a good 8-9hour drive so we will be up early tomorrow.
Wednesday we are heading out to the Grand Canyon. We are staying out there for the night because we have been told it is most spectacular at sunset and sunrise.
Thursday we head back to Vegas and spend the night there
Friday we are heading to San Diego. We plan to stay until Sunday and see the Zoo and generally check the place out.
Monday we are flying to Vancouver!
Unfortunately we couldn't fit in Yosimite National Park. I really wanted to go but half the park is closed as its Winter, and the part that is open can still be quite bad (ie need to carry snow chains etc).
Thats all for now. See you in Vegas Baby!
Next Post - 'The Wonderful Las Vegas'
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