Let's begin with, I'm a big Dirty Harry fan.
So, to visit San Francisco, the scene of many a Dirty Harry movie, was always going to be a highlight.
Add to that, the brilliant Golden Gate Bridge is in San Francisco as well as the amazing Alcatraz Island and you've got yourself a pretty cool place to visit.
We wandered around town for a while and I wanted to walk up some hills, but Samantha put paid to that and insisted we catch the trolley car to Fisherman's Wharf. Samantha was right as some of the streets are seriously steep!
Lombard Street was on the way so we stopped off and had a wander down the street billed as the world's crookedest street. It is very steep and zig zags back and forth to probably live up to its claim.
Fisherman's Wharf was fairly overrated to be honest, although Ghirardelli Chocolates are down there. Predictably, we visited and bought some chocolates.
One of the highlights on the trolley car trip back was when the trolley car stopped bang in the middle of an intersection of four streets and the brake man jumped out, headed across to the local pizza parlour and ordered a pizza for the trip back! Remember, this was peak hour to! Classic.
One of the major reasons we visited San Francisco though, was to visit Alcatraz.
Alcatraz was once a major prison with some pretty serious villains banged up there. In fact, Al Capone was sent there.
It's certainly an interesting place. Some parts of it were seriously cold when the breeze blew in and I don't think it would have been a good place to be...although, that is of course, the point.
The view though, when you can leave of your own accord, is amazing and is to be appreciated. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge really well from Alcatraz and it's now a National Park where loads of birds nest.
I would definitely recommend everyone visit Alcatraz, especially if you are interested in history.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a world icon and it certainly lived up to all expectations. It really is amazing.
We walked across part of the bridge but it isn't exactly a fantastic walk as the cars are speeding along and it's quite noisy, so we headed back to town via Height Ashbury. This area is a pretty cool area with loads of clothes shops that are not the standard High Street shops.....but enough on that.
San Francisco is a cool place and we'll be heading back, especially to the Cheesecake Factory, very nice indeed!
