… make sure to wear some flowers in you hair.  Love that song!  Anywho, Jay and I wanted a fun day in San Francisco.  We tried going the weekend before, but I REALLY wanted to go to Alcatraz and the tickets were sold out.  So I made sure to buy them for Saturday.  We finally made it into the city around 11 am, after a late start (aka…Jay wouldn’t get up).  Our first stop, The Ferry Building.

The ferry building has all kinds of gourmet food shops and restaurants.  Here is one of my fave foods, Olives!

And Jay’s fave… meat!

We walked around the whole place, it was packed! 

Here are more goodies we saw in the Ferry Building…

Then we headed to Alcatraz.  It was a 1 mile walk from the Ferry Building to the Pier, then a 15 minute boat ride to “The Rock”.  After a brief orientation, you make the walk up to the cell house for the audio tour.

The tall building to the right was an apartment where guards lived.  The building in the center was the staff’s “social hall”.  They even had a bowling alley!

These were the showers.

This was the typical cell set up.

This was the kitchen.  They had outlines of the knives to make sure none of them were stolen.  Alcatraz was said to have the best food in the prison system, because the staff and prisoners had to eat the same meals.

Alcatraz was such an interesting experience!  I think it’s a must see for anyone going to San Francisco.  You learn so much about this short piece of history.  One thing I didn’t know…it was originally a fort, built in the 1800s to protect the gold found during the gold rush.  Stay tuned! Tomorrow I’ll talk about all the foods we indulged in at the Ferry Market after our Alcatraz Journey.

Have you ever been to San Francisco?  If so, what is your favorite thing to do there?