Published: 23.08.2025
To be honest, I didn't expect much from San Francisco as a city. It was clear that the Golden Gate Bridge and The Rock would be highlights, but the city itself? Meh! As is often the case, one is wiser in hindsight. Yes, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz are absolute hits, but even without these two attractions, the trip to San Francisco was well worth it. The city has a completely different vibe compared to LA, but it's a really great vibe. The verticality of the city, which is evident in the steep hills, the openness and lightheartedness of the locals, and the very pleasant climate; San Francisco enchanted us.
We started our day tour at Pier 39, the counterpart to Santa Monica Pier. And even though I generally don't enjoy ports and piers (I'm a landlubber and don't like fish or crabs or any other sea stuff), I found Pier 39, or rather the harbor area, significantly more interesting than Santa Monica Pier. To 'fuel up' for the rest of the day, we first went to 'Candy World' and then to Pier 33, where the Alcatraz ferries depart.
By now, it should be clear that I'm a huge fan of The Rock (and coincidentally I'm also a big fan of the other The Rock, but he obviously wasn't part of this tour (though we did see his wax figure in Hollywood)). This has a lot to do with the film of the same name, which still ranks among my top 3 action films of all time (the other two are Terminator 2 and Die Hard), because the film offers many iconic scenes and Alcatraz is just the perfect location for an action movie; but it also relates to the general history and mythos of Alcatraz. After all, it was the prison for inmates who had caused trouble in other prisons and fled ('Break the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz.'). When planning our trip to America, only a few attractions were set for me: Hollywood, Golden Gate Bridge, Yosemite, and - of course - Alcatraz. Is anyone missing Las Vegas here? It will surely be cool, but personally, it wasn't a must-have for me.
The stakes for The Rock were quite high. But already during the boat ride to the island, it was clear: this is going to be great. The wind howls around your ears, you have a fantastic view of San Francisco, and The Rock itself offers an imposing sight with its towering prison complex. Once you stand on the dock, Alcatraz has definitely captured you (haha). At the same time, you will also be confronted with the only 'problem' from my perspective, namely the penetrating smell of the sea and sea birds, either at this point or actually already on the ferry itself. As I said, I'm not a big fan of the sea, and one of the reasons for that is the smell. That's definitely one of the reasons why I prefer cities like Berlin over cities like Hamburg. Since The Rock is now a nature reserve for sea birds, many of these creatures are on the island and doing their business there. Fortunately, you don't notice this much in the cell blocks, which brings me to the cell block tour. I was already impressed by the flawless German map provided in Yosemite; Alcatraz took it to the next level. At the dock, you can get a brochure in German for one dollar, and the already exciting audio tour through the cell blocks was recorded in perfect German. In the self-guided cell block tour, you gain insights into all relevant areas of the cell blocks (regular cells, isolation cells, 'recreation cells', dining room, outdoor area, etc.) and are vividly taught about the (very oppressive) daily life on The Rock. After the tour, it’s clear how Alcatraz managed to break its inmates.
Equally nice: you can explore the island pretty much on your own. Some areas are not accessible for safety reasons, but overall, you have little restrictions when exploring The Rock.
A visit to The Rock is relatively expensive (almost $50 per ticket), but definitely worth it.
A visit to Chinatown and driving along the famous Lombard Street with its 8 tight curves was also a must for us. On this street, you particularly notice a phenomenon that you can encounter at many crosswalks in San Francisco: people stop while crossing the street to quickly take one or two photos of the steep streets. I had to force myself not to stop in the middle of every crossing to take photos. The sight of these steep streets is almost hypnotic.
To be continued...
Distance covered: 12 km
Steps taken: 16,000
PS: even though the other bridges of the Bay are by no means as famous as the Golden Gate Bridge, they are not (much) less impressive. The Bay Bridge, which we used for the round trip to Fremont, is just as spectacular as the Golden Gate Bridge. Coming from Oakland, there are precisely 16 lanes leading to the bridge (which are then reduced to 4 lanes through a traffic signal system consisting of 16 traffic lights). Another peculiarity of the bridge is that it is essentially divided into three parts: the western part from San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island is two-tiered, in the eastern part from Yerba Buena Island to Oakland, the two lanes run parallel, and the middle section (the one on Yerba Buena Island) is a tunnel.
