Fallen hopelessly behind again with the blog – just having too much fun I’m afraid!! Is only 2 weeks since we arrived in San Francisco but we have done a lot since then so seems a long time ago. Will try my very best over the next week or so to catch up. Not because I think you are all sat there impatiently waiting to hear where we are and what we are doing but because otherwise I lose total track of what we did and it doesn’t give anyone a chance to give me advice on where we should go / what we shouldn’t miss. (Although in truth it is hard enough now having to miss out things that we would like to see if time were not an issue so anymore ‘must sees’ from you lot makes it even trickier!!)

We arrived in San Francisco on the evening of Saturday 11th October.  We had booked a campsite in San Francisco, which we understood to be the closest to the city. We planned on spending a few days making the most of the campsites ‘easy access to the city’ to explore. Wrong!! The campsite may have been only 7 miles from town therefore making it the closest but it was tucked away miles from anything other than Candlestick Arena the abandoned home of the San Francisco 49ers.

It was a carpark with some of the smallest pitches (or sites as they call them here) we have ever experienced. The lines were so close together that the slide outs of the guy next to us were over the line and into our pitch meaning we could barely open our door!! The transport to town consisted of a shuttle bus run by them that was going to cost us $60 a day and that would be on top of the $100 per night fee to stay there. That made it both the worst and the most expensive campsite we have booked so far.

Seriously disappointed and with our excitement at San Francisco disappearing fast we checked out on Sunday morning and decided anywhere had to be better than there so thought we would wing it. We headed into town in Frankie and parked up at Presidio Heights, just by the bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge Park. I fell in love with the city immediately (as I suspected I would). The setting of course is perfect with the bridge and the bay and its islands all set against the backdrop of the colourful and interesting city skyline.

We spent the first day down at Pier 39 and Fishermans Wharf – us and what seemed like the entire 180,000 population of San Fran. It was Fleet Week and so the harbour was full of ships of all shapes and sizes and more excitingly the Blue Angels (the USA’s answer to the Red Arrows) were entertaining the crowds most of the afternoon. We wandered along to enquire about tickets for the Alcatraz tour and were told the next available tour was Tuesday at 12.30 – which decided how long a stay we were going to have to make here!!

Lunch at The Crab House was a delicious if not slightly rushed affair but it did give us the best seats in town to watch the air display!

We were beginning to get a little concerned about where we might have to stay with no campsite now booked and called John and Diane who we met in Lake Louise to see if they had any advice (I have reams of notes I made while talking to them which we have referred to several times to find great places along our way). Lovely to speak to them but sadly they couldn’t help us as they always stay at their daughters when in SF. The traffic was horrendous so we got off our bus and walked back through town to where Frankie was parked.

We decided to head North back out of town (breaking our own rule about never going back on ourselves) and turned up at a campsite at the side of the highway that Trip Advisor warned was not up to much – however we were desperate by then! Just showing that you can’t believe everything the good people who share their experiences with Trip Advisor have to say the campsite was great. Yes it was basically another carpark. But with huge wide spaces and at $60 a night was a huge improvement. Better still, access into town was via ferry departing Larkspur just 5 minutes walk from the campsite. Happy happy happy!!

We ended up staying there another 3 nights and caught the ferry into town each day. The best part of the ferry was that it came into the brilliant Ferry Building, which is a market of great food stalls. We picked up amazing cheeses, wines, coffees and cakes and had supper there 2 nights in a row at Gotts!

Our trip to Alcatraz on Tuesday was easily the highlight of our stay here. It was a very cold foggy day which seemed fitting – crazy how we were sat outside in shorts and t shirts one day then jeans and waterproofs the next, bit like a British summer!

We did one of the Ranger Led tours as well the audio tour that you pick up to actually explore inside the prison buildings. I had no idea the island had such a long history. It served first as a fort during the Gold Rush era. The cells and recreation area are so familiar from endless films that it was incredible to see them in person. We obviously took turns to photograph each other ‘imprisoned’. Although the tours no longer offer the opportunity to actually have the doors shut on you after a visitor got locked in for 4 hours when the door jammed a few years ago and they had to wait for someone to come over from town to cut them free! Although that might have given us a few hours free babysitting…

Highlights of the tour for us were meeting an ex prisoner #1239. William G Baker spent 3 years in Alcatraz and has written a book about his experiences. He was there signing copies and wrote the kids a message which made me laugh – “Be good!”. The other was a story from the audio tour about a prisoner who to stop himself going mad when in ‘the hole’ would pop a button off his shirt and occupy himself dropping it and searching for it again. Charlie was especially taken with this idea and it prompted many a conversation about how we might have felt imprisoned with the view of the city just there – oh and the smell of the Ghardelli chocolate factory just across the bay which must have driven the prisoners crazy!

Other than that we mainly just wandered our way round town. We used the buses, trams and of course the cable cars! Saw the beautiful Palace of Arts where William was beside himself at the huge numbers of hummingbirds just buzzing around! We walked up and down the worlds Crookedest Street of course having decided Frankie might not make it… We spent ages watching the sealions down at Fishermans Wharf while soaking up the sunshine!!

One of my favourite books many years ago was the Armstead Maupin Tale of the City series set in San Francisco in the early 80’s. It was very much in my mind as we wandered around town. At every corner I spotted Anna Madrigal’s garden…

One thing we were all looking forward to was walking or biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove over it 3 times never quite managing to work out how to pay the toll so are awaiting a ticket – if they can find us! However, my back had finally gone so I was just about managing to limp on and off buses and trams but was certainly not up to biking or walking the mile long bridge. So we had to make do with a series of great viewpoints and photo opportunities on our way out of town on Wednesday morning.

We had a great time in San Francisco but had to move on after maybe less time there than we would have liked. But we still have a lot of miles to cover and lots to see before we get to Tubac at the end of November.