The weather was perfect again today so there were many picture opportunities to be had from the water. It is an odd thing - that a 150 year old construction that has been used for military defense, prisoners and US penitentiary on a little rock would attract so much attention - but there were thousands of people there - so it was hard to get a shot without some little gimp jumping in the way of your picture!
A view of Alcatraz on the way over....
The watchtower watches over all as the prisoners arrive on the island - scary stuff!
Also - if you were thinking of attempting to swim away - they had plenty of time to take pot shots of you as you swam in circles to avoid the sharks!
The famous water tower on the island.
Much of the island has fallen into disarray - this used to be the officers quarters
The Alcatraz lighthouse
One of the things that used to drive the prisoners mad is the views of San Fran they had within a stone's throw. They knew there was never a chance of a normal life outside of prison even though it was within touching distance and thus it was an excruciating sight to see. This was the view of San Fran from one side of the island - stunning, or painful if you were a con!
The Alcatraz riots were started when prisoners escaped using homemade 'bar benders' as displayed below. They didn't make it though and the marines ended up being called in - they dropped grenades through the roof to kill the inmates - subtle as always.
Sadly 6 guards were overpowered and locked inside one of the cells. The prisoners shot them at point blank range when they were startled by the approaching marines.
The kitchen used to have black marks where the knifes were (as seen on the right) - this would tell the guards if any were missing. This didn't stop many knife attacks happening though!
Some pics of many of the famous inmates housed at Alcatraz - front of the queue here is Al Capone.
Some inmates are still here and very hungry!!!
The cell key used to be lowered down to guards so they never got caught out by inmates and their keys stolen.
The intimidating 'Broadway' stretch.
Bye, Bye Alcatraz.
As we left San Francisco (which is the coolest city I have ever been to!) we drove over the Golden Gate bridge - awesome!
We then took an hours drive up to Napa ready for our wine tour tomorrow. We booked into a cool little motel and then wandered into town for a lovely Italian meal
Off for some wine tasting in Napa Valley tomorrow - hope we don't get too sozzled!!
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