San Francisco can I say more. Sat nav told us our site was 6 miles away from where we knew it to be from the map, Why, well the site address was San Francisco rv Park 700 Palmetto Drive and there are 3 or four 700 Palmetto Drives or addresses on the same road in different districts. House numbers on roads so far have reached above No 10500 I wonder what is the highest.
Site another parking lot with many residents right on the pacific ocean but no access in fact 25 prime ocean facing pitches had half fallen into the sea as the cliff erodes its way inland.
Centre of city some 15 miles away with access by train from station 3 miles from site. Huge car park $1 per day so no parking problems and we caught the train in both days to the centre. Useful 3 day ticket for most forms of transport so we were set up to go.
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San Francisco when all said and done is only a city like say London etc and many areas are mentioned in the Rough Guide 150 odd pages on the city. What to do , where to go.
Cable cars are the most obvious feature of the city and we travelled up and down on them and even had to hang on the outside of one coming back to the centre. They really do go up incredibly steep roads but along with other traffic, there 'bus stops' are at flat sections where roads cross the hills at right angles these are invariably traffic lights so the cable car stops in the middle off the junction and off loads and loads passengers regardless of what the light say. Quite fun really. Only two cable car routes now though there were once 8 routes and 120 miles of cable but a lot destroyed in 1905 earthquake. Finally about to be ripped up completely in 1947 but saved by public pressure and now of course the No. one attraction.
An amazing system with the cables underground and the cable cars themselves being upwards of 80 years old At each end of the track the cars go on a turntable and are pushed by hand to turn them around. Driver uses levers and a lot of effort to control the speed of the car and the brake man at the back weighs in with his lever on the steeper downhill sections.
Fisherman's wharf the tripper area was not bad nor quite as tacky as some though it had its moments.
1st MAY
ALCATRAZ perhaps also the No. 1 attraction. Boat trip to the island and audio tour of the prison tied up by one government concession so expensive and busy.
It was a good tour, the prison obviously sanitised but you got some feeling of scale and what the whole meant to both warders and prisoners. Cells tiny, a bed and at its foot a wc 3ft to opposite wall with a collapsible metal table and that's it. Four layers of cells , blacks and whites separated in different parts of the goal as impossible to put both together. 80% white prisoners.
13 prisoners escaped only three have never been accounted for but have never been heard of since.
Icy water and strong currents surround the island and without a boat and outside help impossible to get safely off and away.
Alcatraz first served as a fortress in the mid 1800s then a military prison tnen in 1934 became the civilian prison, abandoned in 1969 as too costly to maintain. The jist of the audio tour was the place was tough and hard, good food apparently the best in any penal institution, but a suitable place for the undoubtedly serious serious criminals kept there. Myth and sensational films have credited the place with attributes that where not really part of the reality.
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