San Francisco and Alcatraz

     A few years ago we decided to take a trip to San Francisco with our friends (John & Cindy).  They had been there before and had a great time.  Our hotel was very nice and located about a block from the trolley car turnaround, very convenient.  We had a number of sites that we wanted to see, the first being Alcatraz.

     While John and I were getting the rooms, Mimi and Cindy struck up a conversation with a guy from Australia; Virgil who made frequent visits to San Francisco.  Virgil was a computer guy with purple hair and a purple business card.  It seemed like an odd color choice for a guy that was about 6' 3" and weighed about 300 lbs but remember this is San Francisco.  He claimed to be very familiar with the area so we asked him how long it would take to walk to the wharf.  He told us about 10 minutes, we later found out Virgil couldn't have been more wrong (he was off by about 50 minutes).

     We had reservations for a night tour of Alcatraz on our first day so we decided to walk to restaurant nearby so we wouldn't be late for the tour.  We did not have a recommendation for this restaurant (I don't remember the name) it was just a random choice.  The moment we walked in the place we noticed a distinctly unpleasant smell, like dog crap.  What the hell!  We stayed despite the smell, to this day I'm not sure why we didn't immediately turn and walk out. The food was all right but we couldn't get over the smell.  For some reason we stayed on to order dessert, apple pie, must be something wrong with us.  Dessert was good better than the main meal but I wouldn't have been surprised if the check came with a doggie treat instead of a mint.

     That night we boarded the boat for our night tour of Alcatraz.  It was an interesting tour and a little eerie at night but that's what we were expecting.  We also had a beautiful very of San Francisco at night from the rock.  Well worth the money.

     There are many things to do in Frisco (I can say that now that I've been there).  We rode the trolley car down to Fisherman’s Wharf, checked out the seals hanging out at pier 39 (it was a few years later they left), took in the Ghirardelli Chocolate tour (Yum), actually went through the line a couple of times.  We did a lot of walking around the streets, had some excellent meals and found a small little fortune cookie factory in Chinatown.  It was in a back alley and the boss man was very friendly.  We felt a little sorry for the ladies pulling the cookies off the hot cookie presses; their fingers were probably numb.  We took some pictures and bought some cookies and headed back to the hotel.

     We had plans to go to Napa Valley so we rented a car but before leaving Frisco we wanted to drive down Lombard Street like Steve McQueen, well maybe not exactly like the scene in the movie (Bullitt).  The houses and gardens on Lombard are beautiful but I'm sure the traffic is a real drag for the people who actually live there.

     The next day we were off to see Sausalito and Muir Woods then Napa Valley the day after.  San Francisco is a great place to visit with some great restaurants, I would go back again but I'd advise skipping any restaurant that smells like dog crap.