Alcatraz at NIGHT - eerie, chilling, perfect!

When we went to San Francisco a couple of years ago, we knew Alcatraz was on our list. We did some research before we went and realized the best ticket to score was to tour the island at NIGHT! It's a special park program limited to a few hundred visitors a day, so you need to buy your tickets WAY in advance. The evening tour also offers special programs, tours and activities not offered in the day, and even allows special access to certain areas normally closed during the day. This is a MUST DO.

We headed over to the island in full light. The views were incredible. I am so fascinated by this island and the stories. This tour also circles the island and gives you narrated history about various things, including those that tried to escape!

WELCOME TO THE ROCK

When we docked, we were greeted by one of the park rangers. If you didn't know Alcatraz is now protected by the National Park Services and is a National Historic Place. The ranger led us up the hill to the cell-house, and we stopped along the way to learn about the history and family life on the island. For workers at the prison, their families LIVED on the island. Can you imagine?!? 

We all received a headset for our audio tour and headed inside. First stop was the laundry room...

 

...then headed into the cell block. One super cool thing about our audio tour is that there were actual interviews from former prisoners there. It made it way too real!

After our audio tour of the cell block, we headed over to the "mess hall". It is connected to the main cell block by a corridor referred to as "Times Square".

They still have the menu up from the last breakfast served to the prisoners!

After leaving the dining hall, there was still some light in the sky. We were able to walk all around the island. One thing we were NOT prepared for us the beauty of the island. Talk about the right climate. There were so many flowers and birds. It was beautiful.

 

The sun is starting to set in the west, and we continue to walk around the island. When they say you are the only visitors on the island during the night tour, they mean it! It was incredibly eerie and spooky. You would be the only person is sight walking down this trail. We wondered if anyone got accidentally left on the island during these tours! 

Here is the Golden Gate in the background....(it's SUPER windy)

 And a shot of the city.....

As the sun finally set, one of the special programs we chose to see was the opening and closing of the cell doors. This was one of the creepiest sounds EVER. They are set to all open and close at the same time. The sounds when the doors closed reverberated through the prison! It was SO loud! 

 

We can't recommend this tour enough. If you are going to Alcatraz - definitely opt for the night tour. You arrive and have plenty of light for the first part of your visit, then basically get the island to yourself in the dark for the rest. When you leave -- the workers even get on your ferry. It's closing time!

And we'll leave you with some words from one of the most famous residents of the Rock....

XO,

Sausalito and Muir Woods - amazing day trips from San Francisco!

A couple of years ago we traveled to San Francisco for our best friend's birthday! We had seen rave review for Dylan's tours, and we decided to take their "famous tour" to get acclimated to the city. It was a minibus tour that took us around the great areas of the city (we'll cover that in a future post!), but it also included trips to Sausalito and Muir Woods! Without this tour, I don't think we would have visited either, and they were two of our highlights from the trip!

Sausalito

Muir Woods

After a morning touring spots and sites in the city, we headed over to lunch in Sausalito. The good thing about this tour is that it was full of history and tips (even pop culture), but you also had free time to explore on your own! Sausalito is a community on the Bay just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and it is the cutest ever. You could spend a day here exploring the little community. It's filled with shops and restaurants and great views. It's really famous for it's food and wine scene which of course, was right up our alley! The tour had planned our lunch break here, so we had free to to explore and eat.

There were many restaurants to choose from, but we picked the Napa Valley Burger Company. YUMM-O! It's located in the oldest brick building in Sausalito and is full of wine country and San Francisco charm. The menu is filled with every type of burger you can imagine, sandwiches, salads and amazing beer and wine. 

We picked the Yountville Burger - smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, garlic aioli and Parmesan crisps. GUYS. It was so good. We also shared a basket of fries, and they were perfection! Highly recommend this stop if you are in Sausalito. The perfect stop on a day of touring!

 After lunch, we got on our mini bus and headed to Muir Woods National Monument. None of us realized how close we were to nature's majestic forest. We LOVED this stop. It is less than 15 miles from San Francisco, but you feel like you are hundreds of miles away in a deep forest wonderland! It's located on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific Coast and is a "cathedral of redwoods".

The pictures can't express the awe and wonder we experienced or the crazy size of the trees. We were singing "from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waterrrrs, this land was made for YOU & ME!". :-)

Do you see us down there!?!?

 

 

Simply amazing. We highly recommend a trip outside the city to explore this national park. Note - we read that earlier this year, the NPS is requiring advance notice for all vehicles, so do yourself a favor....leave the car and take a tour! You'll learn so much and can just sit back, relax, and enjoy! We can't recommend Dylan's Tours enough. It was such a great day.

XO,