Another thing we saw in San Francisco was Balmy Alley, which is a back street where all the garage doors are covered with murals. Balmy Alley is in artistic-mexican neighborhood so the murals are about many different subjects, from emigration from El Salvador to USA, through memorial to parents and friends who died of AIDS, to praise of San Francisco. One of murals was not displayed as somebody was fixing a car and the garage door was open. Art vs life 0:1 …
We took a look at the city from Twin Peaks, passing through Castro which is colorful-gay-hipster neighborhood. Unfortunately we didn’t have time for a stop there.
We skipped Cable Car ride, we planned to do this on our way to Alcatraz. We wanted to use public transportation for a day, as it would be cheaper and Maciek would have fun, but we must have forgotten how to do this and we missed our train from San Jose. So we changed the plans and then we just gave it up - taking two kids, backpack and a stroller on a cable car with a crowd of people didn’t really seem like fun. Maybe next time.
Practical tip: tickets to Alcatraz should be purchased by internet at least a couple days earlier. Don’t leave it for last minute (like we did) because you might have to stay in San Francisco a day longer (like we did). It was worth an extra day. Even though it’s a national park (meaning: a real touristic factory), you can feel the spirit of the Rock.
We won’t write too much about the history of Alcatraz. What was interesting for us in the first place was that before people came there, there was nothing but guano. Now there are trees and flowers growing, but all the soil has been brought from land. Before people came there it was really a rock.
Since Civil War the Rock used to be military area and there was a fort on it. Later the penitentiary purposes became more and more important. First there was just military prison, later partly civilian (for example Indians who refused to send their kids to public schools were locked there), and in the 30s it became a maximum-security federal penitentiary and one of its most prominent guest was, of course, Al Capone.
Alcatraz was used as federal prison only for 29 years, from 1934 to 1963. It was closed for financial reasons, the prison law changed, reconstructions and necessary changes were too expensive to have an off-shore prison.
Alcatraz is proud that nobody escaped from there, but soon before it was closed three prisoners had disappeared. Official version is that after escaping through technical corridors they died in waters of San Francisco Bay. We think CIA found and killed them to sustain the legend of Alcatraz. We’re in America, we can believe whatever we want, and if somebody doesn’t believe it we can find a dozen of experts who will confirm what we want.
Alcatraz is a must-see if you are in San Francisco. There is an audio tour where prisoners and guards talk about their lives on the Rock. One of the prisoners says that even though he spent a few years there he never saw guards’ rooms, but when he came back as a tourist (!!??), he looked around and he really liked it. There was also a volunteer who demonstrated how cells were locked and opened. Even though there was quite a crowd of tourists there when the sound of the closed doors was heard there was a complete silence. It is a touristic factory but it gives shivers …
Before Alcatraz become national park it was occupied by Indians for a few years. There are still signs on the walls left there as are rocks and plants in other national parks. There is even a part of exhibition, and they are mentioned in the movie. But it’s not easy to find how did the occupation end. You can actually think that Indians thanked for hospitality and went back home. Of course it was different, they were kicked out by the military.
As far as the end of occupation is a shameful subject, it was not in vain. It left more than just graffiti on the walls. It changed the federal authorities approach to giving land and privileges to native Americans. And who would have thought reclaiming land would start on a land that was never inhabited in the past, not even by Indians...
After we came back from Alcatraz we walked along Fisherman’s Wharf, full of expensive shops, restaurants and sea lions on wooden platforms. Bit further there is the last stop of Cable Car and Ghirardelli Square with delicious chocolate. They give free samples too!
Good advice regarding parking: Alcatraz ferry leaves from pier 33 and parking around it is extremely expensive. 15 minute walk from there, in Little Italy there is a parking for 8 USD for full day. We parked on 676 Greet Street. When we came back from Alcatraz we even met the owner. He was very interested in our Libyan experience and we were interested if it’s worth keeping a piece of land in very center of San Francisco and use it as a parking lot for 15 cars. He said he’d rather have few hundred bucks per day than few million in the bank. He didn’t trust government and "free" media too much, he preferred Russia Today. A lot of Russians probably don’t trust their banks as well, probably they watch Fox News.
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Parking in SF
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We also went on a day trip to Big Basin Redwoods, but there were quite a few sequoya places later on, so we’ll write about it in a separate post.
San Francisco is a very friendly city (although not for RVs). Each neighborhood has its unique character, in each you can feel that the city is alive. It feels more European than American. Cable cars, people on the streets, bikes. This is by far our best city experience in the US. Even though our car broke down again and it costed us almost 200 USD to fix it. After all the car broke down in San Jose and it was fixed there, San Francisco has nothing to do with it …
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| Our "base camp" - Polish church in San Jose |
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