The Lane's next BIG trip: Dat 11. San Francisco. Monday 30th December

Turns out the most direct route to Union Square (Macy's, Saks Fifth Ave and other nice shops) isn't necessary the best. There are heaps of homeless people begging along Geary Street as there is a soup kitchen close by. In fact, there are a lot of homeless people all over San Francisco which has been a bit of an eye opener for all of us. We decided the safest and best way to see the city highlights was doing the open top double decker bus tour. We bought a 48 hour pass and walked about 15 minutes to our closest stop. Initially the bus was full so we sat down stairs where at least it was warm. After a couple of stops the bus cleared a bit and we moved upstairs. If we weren't awake before then we certainly were now. the breeze upstairs was very fresh! The route took us through San Francisco's famous attractions including the Haight Ashbury district, Pier 39, Fishermans Wharf and of course the Golden Gate Bridge. We got off the bus and walked along the bridge with hundreds of others. Before arriving Andrew had contemplated running across the bridge but after seeing what the hundreds of cyclists and the few runners had to deal with he decided he would have got 'running rage'. The stroll took us about an hour and we were impressed with the bridge's beauty. Unfortunately it was smoggy/foggy so the views to the city and Alcatraz were not so good. You would be pretty lucky if you crossed the bridge on a clear day though. We re-boarded on the northern side of the bridge and continued the tour back towards the city centre and got off at Pier 39 where we had lunch at Bubba Gumps and walked around looking at 'San Francisco's most popular attraction'. We smelt, heard and then saw the famous Sea Lions that have made the pier their home. There seems to be hundreds of them all 'hanging about' on platforms. Some are fighting, some are playing, some are swimming and some are sleeping. It is quite an extraordinary sight. In the late afternoon we boarded a ferry for a 10 minute ride to Alcatraz where we did the headphone guided night tour. We booked our tickets the day they went on sale, 3 months ago, as there is a limited number of people per day & night allowed onto the island (a sign at the ticket box at the ferry said the next available day ticket was January 6). The history of 'The Rock' is fascinating and we were were glad to be on the smaller night tour with only 300 other people visiting the cell block. Visitors during the day can stay as long as they want as there are numerous ferry landings and therefore there are a lot more people all trying to look at the same things at the same time.
The night views of San Francisco were beautiful. The Golden Gate bridge is not lit up (which was very disappointing) but the San Francisco to Oakland Bay Bridge was and has a pretty light show running up and down the bridge cables. We warmed up with a walk back along the Embarcadero (Esplanade) to Pier 1 and then jumped on one of the famous Trolley Cars for the steep ride up the hill to near where our hotel is. The iconic Trolleys are obviously for the tourists at $6 each for the 10 minute ride. We had been promising the kids an ice cream all day so we popped into Mel's Diner for a late night treat before going to bed.