we had sampled the wares (six different types between us) first. The
champagne was very nice, the tour was a little patronizing, but surprisingly
humorous...though possibly that is the drink talking.
We spent three days in San Francisco itself and did all the typical tourist
things: cable cars, Alcatraz, Ghirardelli Square and the sea lions. Yes, sea
lions. They must be one of the big tourist attractions because they have their
own leaflets complete with their own stage name the 'sea lion-ebrities'.... you
cannot make this stuff up.
The first day we took the ‘shuttle’ into town, mainly because we had
prebooked tickets for Alcatraz and, not knowing the city, we thought this
would be the quickest option. This might well have been true - the journey
home in the ‘shuttle’ took 20 minutes. However, we were driven into town by a
100 year old Chinese man for whom the word hurry no longer existed. The
journey took 45 minutes via the scenic route - taking in many exquisite sites...
. of warehouses. The journey was made less bearable by our driver making
very bad jokes based on his incomplete knowledge of the UK. To his credit he
did furnish us with a map of the city complete with hand-drawn sketches of the
different forms of public transport.
This was vital as soon as he dropped us off because it enabled us to
recognize the cable car that we had to take to the other side of town to board
our ferry to Alcatraz. Before we did this however, we bought travel passes as
the prospect of taking the ‘shuttle’ again left us cold (and skint). What we did
not have at this stage was a proper map of the bus and cable car routes,