Day in the Bay

Early start this morning to avoid the crowds at the cable car; we were down at the cable car station by about 7AM and there was no one around no line at all.

This time we took the Powell-Hyde cable car which ends closer to Ghirardelli Square and the meeting point for Dylan’s tours.

We reached Ghirardelli by around 7.45 and hunted around for somewhere to get breakfast, there were not too many people about at this time of day but some brave souls were doing the bay swim already.

Eventually settled on the Black Point Café and the breakfast there was excellent, and the locals chatty and friendly.

Then it was off to meet our tour group for Dylan’s tours.

The First stop on the bus tour was just below the Golden Gate Bridge at Fort Point, we couldn’t go into the fort as there was a historical recreation going on but we got to see the outside of it and watch the surfers catching waves below the Golden Gate Bridge, awesome views of the bridge from a different perspective from the bike ride on the previous day.

Back on the bus and off over the Golden Gate Bridge and then to Muir Redwood Forrest
Matt and I walked off to find one of the walks described by the tour guide; the forest was awesome magnificent trees stretching toward the sky.

As we walked on it became apparent we had gone the wrong way and were a bit lost, I decided we need to head back as we had been walking longer than half the amount of time we had until the bus left, Matt was a bit stubborn about it insisting we had plenty of time and the bus wouldn’t leave without us, we ended up running back, and the bus driver was pacing up and down waiting for us.

The bus then took us to Sausalito again where we stopped for lunch, we went to the Taste of Rome and sat outside on the street, it was cold on the street side so we moved around the corner into the sunshine, it was much more pleasant.

After eating we walked down to the beach area and checked out the boats and views before heading back to the bus.

Next stop was Golden Gate View Point, the traffic up there was pretty heavy so the bus driver dropped us for a photo opportunity and headed up the hill to a turning point picking us back up on the way down.

The bus then headed back across the Golden Gate and did a tour of the Prisideo area before dropping us at the Ferry for Alcatraz. We waited around for half an hour at the ferry.

Once on the ferry we headed off to Alcatraz, when we got off everyone gathered on the dock to listen to the safety briefing, then we were free to head up and join the tour.

The prison has an interesting history and seeing the cells was chilling, it was great to see the areas where the prisoners had escaped behind the cells in the ducts.

When we arrived back downtown after exiting the ferry we spotted some stairs that looked like they headed up to Coit tower, so we wandered up them, wow what a climb, hard to believe people actually live up these stairs, there were even little gardens along the track it was quite a tranquil little oasis in the big city.

Unfortunately the tower had just closed when we got to the top so we didn’t get to go inside, but the views from below were pretty amazing.

We walked back down the hill and stopped off at the Pier 23 Café for some dinner and a brew.

We caught the tram back to Market Street and walked back to the Hotel from there.