DAY 7: Monterey to 17 Mile Drive to San Francisco, California
We stayed overnight in the La Quinta Inn, Monterey. After a good breakfast - scrambled eggs, sausage, waffles, oatmeal, toast, muffins, fruit juice, bagels and cream cheese (well, I didn't eat all of that!) we were onto the bus at 7am. Yawn. It was raining, unfortunately.
We started our journey today by driving through Pacific Grove, which is a lovely little coast road heading out of Monterey. Many of the houses are nicely done and they also have a golf course. It's very similar to 17-Mile Drive, although it's hard to tell in the rain (sorry about the photos).
Pacific Grove was a little extra as a shortcut to 17-Mile Drive - lucky really. 17-Mile Drive
has a $9.50 entrance fee, and we can't do all seventeen miles in the bus, but once in, there are some fancy shmansy houses in here. Movie stars and other wealthy folk live here, like the Dole and Del Monte pineapple people. (No, they're not what you're thinking, they made their money from, not they are made from.) The area is owned by the Pebble Beach Corporation. The houses are great, but with rain all over the windows of the bus, photography was a bit of a washout.
We did make a couple of stops. The first was at Cypress Point Lookout. Not many made it off the bus, but I had no qualms about sending Di and Paul out to take some pictures. You'd expect nothing less, right?
Our other stop was at Lone Cypress. Clint Eastwood fans might recognise it from his production company logo. No? Oh. Well, you should. On a clear day, both this points have amazing views, and there are more stops when the weather's good. But, it's not, so after a few photos we completed the drive and headed north for San Francisco.
If you don't mind the daily buses driving through your neighborhood, or paying millions, I'd say it would probably worth it to live here. I've just got to save up a little. Maybe I'll retire here.
On our way north, we found we do know the way to San Jose. It's in a very high-tech area. Eventually, we arrived in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park - a manmade creation - the city of San Francisco hired a guy to plant it out. He made a pretty good job. There's an auditorium, some museums, a tea garden, botanical gardens, we even saw some bison! (No, they're not buffalo. You should know that.)
We came out of the park at the Pacific Ocean, then Jose decided that, as we could see the Bridge, we'd go see the Bridge, while we could. We only had twenty rainy minutes there, but we did see it. At the parking lot of the Golden Gate Bridge, there's a statue of Joseph B Strauss, chief engineer of the bridge.
Paul hadn't been here before (Di and I had walked it on a previous occasion, well, two-thirds of it), so we made him at least step out onto it - it's been eleven years, I think, since I was last here, on my first big US tour in 2000. Then we grabbed a quick shot of Alcatraz before returning to the bus.
We continued our city tour passing Pacific Heights (the posh part of town), and checking out a few old buildings that either survived, or were rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake.
We passed City Hall, with it gold decoration on the roof. We saw one of the main streets that had the cable cars running on it (usually - however, while we're in town, they're not running!) Next, we headed to Alamo Square to see the Painted Ladies, a group of six brightly-coloured houses. Television and movie buffs might recognise the area, having featured in the sitcom Full House, and the film Mrs Doubtfire.
Then, we had one of those weird Archers anomalies - we were dropped for lunch, at Pier 39, before going to Alcatraz, meaning we had less time for Alcatrazing (it is a verb, isn't it? To Alcatraz?) Which is a shame. Again, I'd been there before, but Paul hadn't and we didn't have long, but more on that shortly. Personally, I would have told us to eat or go catch the boat but, we didn't get that choice, so we had to go shopping, and seal watching instead. Ah well. I got me another cool shirt - you'll see it later in the trip.
The bus picked us up outside the Hard Rock Cafe and dropped us a couple hundred yards or so down the road at the Alcatraz boat dock. Then we took the boat across the bay to Alcatraz.
It had stopped raining when we landed, which was an improvement. The crowd gathered as a Ranger gave us a little talk about the history of the island, then we headed off up another big hill. If I had to do all this walking we'd never see anything! That's why I have assistants. Welcome to Alcatraz Penitentiary.
It's an unpleasant, inhospitable place, but I guess that's the point. Once you've got your breath back - after the hill climb - they give you a radio headset so you can take your own self-guided tour of the prison. It's kinda fun to watch all the visitors following the same path, at slightly different times...or maybe that's just me. Checkout the luxury of the cells - I think that middle shot is Paul's favourite! Hmm.
They have a communications room set up. They also have a large model of the island - bit crowded, but nice and isolated, kept escaping down to a minimum. There's lots of movies about it - some more accurate than others. As you can see, it's not that far from the mainland, but it's certainly far enough. All those who tried to escape were caught, or died trying, but no one knows what happened to three men who disappeared from their cells in June 1962.
The men, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, dug through the walls in their cells, then, on the night of their escape, they placed heads made of soap, cement and paint under their blankets, escaped through the vent holes and up a utility shaft (three storeys!) They escaped into the icy currents of the bay in a boat made out of a raincoat. They were never seen again, alive or dead so no one knows if the escape was successful or not. Well, the escape was, I guess, they did escape after all.
At the end of the audio tour, we headed back down the hill, taking the time to look at a few of the old buildings. Alcatraz was a Civil War fort, but following the end of the war, there was a need to send military prisoners somewhere - Guantanamo Bay wasn't open yet (shame it still is!) - so the fort became a military prison with temporary structures. These were replaced in 1907 with permanent structures which became the prison we just toured.
This cannon is the smallest artillery gun they had back in 1866 when they were present to protect the city of San Francisco. They fired canisters containing small bores and were present to deter troops from approaching up the road. What do you think of the watchtower? Nice isn't it? Fake though - apparently it was left over from a movie - maybe Sean Connery's The Rock if I remember rightly, though it could be something else. They have a nice truck too.
Then we caught the boat back to the mainland where the coach met us to take us back to the hotel.
We arrived at the Prescott Hotel just in time for the end of their Special Hour. They had free wine (my favourite kind!) This is a nice hotel, it’s a little more upscale than your standard Archers hotel, with bathrobes and a minibar. However, there is no coffee in the room, and they insisted each room leave a credit card swipe (in case someone clears the minibar I guess). But, it means they dropped a Ted - we don't expect this kind of thing on an Archers tour.
We planned to go to Macy’s on Union Square as they have a Cheesecake Factory restaurant there, but when we arrived there was a wait for an hour - dropped a Ted because of it. They did say we could get our concierge to call and we’d move up the queue but we couldn’t be bothered. Instead, we bought some cheesecake to go (and a survey code which would later earn us $10 of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, drool. It did, by the way.)
We stumbled upon one of Jose’s recommendations – Lori’s Diner. It was a very typical 1950s-style American diner, with a black and white floor, shiny red booths and a bar with stools. There was lots of chrome everywhere.
Well, they had a couple of veggie options for difficult Di and everyone else was happy with the menu choices. All the food we ordered was hot and good. Wine started at $21 per bottle, but we splashed out on a $24 bottle (what the hell, it was Paul’s money!) They also had beer; The service was good and we couldn’t really find anything to complain about, so we gave ‘em four Teds.
