Today in San Francisco, we woke up pretty early to fit in our breakfast at the grill down stairs so we could make it to our 9.30 ferry to Alcatraz... the USA's most infamous prison.
We caught a tram car down from Market Street, all the way to Pier 33 where the ferry took off from. It was an interesting ride, as we saw parts of the city we hadn't seen yet. This part is pretty flat as it runs arounf the coast. Once we got to our destination, we jumped off and made our way to the ticket booth to collect our pre paid tickets. We arrived pretty early, so the lady put us on the earler ferry at 9.10. Awesome. So we waited in a line with about 200 other people, and all made it into the ferry with no problems. To get good views, we sat on the top deck in the sun looking out over the San Francisco harbour. With the Golden Gate Bridge to one side, and Alcatraz island to the other, it was a scenic ride out.
Once we got to the island, we could see all the run down buildings of the prison. There was also a lot of graffeti on some of the buldings near the dock, which we later found out why.
We had a brief intro to the island via a park ranger once departing the ferry, and watched a quick history video in the Ferry Building. Alcatraz was first a army fort, then a prison, then a refuge for native American Indians (who had done all the graffeti) and now a national park.
The first thing we did was join a guided tour, which turned out to be awesome as we entered parts of the island that were closed off to others. We walked through eerie tunnels, went into creepy buildings and also got told about the grim history of the island. Steph and I thought the worst was when the prison closed in the 60's due to high costs to keep it open, it was abandonded for about 8 years.. during this time, anyone with a boat could literally get off there and do what they wanted. Stories of drug labs in some buildings were told, as were weapon deals and other illegal activites as no one ever visited. Once it became a National Park, it was all cleaned up again, but vandalisation to the buildings during this time was not reparable.
For the next few ours, we took the audio tour around the main cell block and heard stories of escapes, famous criminals and how life was on the "Rock". It was interesting to see how iscolated it was - however from my experience, Port Arthur in Tasmania is MUCH more of an intense and creepy prison!
We left the island after exploring it about 12.30, and made our way back to shore. We had lunch at Peir 39, and then walked up and down it looking at all its cute shops and cafes in the sun of the afternoon. We made our way home, and relaxed for the rest of the day due to all the walking around Alcatraz.
