We arrived in San Francisco in the evening after over 8 hours on the bus. It wasn't the most ideal way to travel but we survived being the hard core travellers that we are! Our hotel was in a good location, right near Union Square. It wasn't great accomodation but it was far better than some places we've stayed. Our LA hotel was so nice, we think it spoilt us a bit. We booked an Alcatraz island trip as that was one of the main reasons we wanted to come here and went there on our second day. For those of you who don't know, Alcatraz is an island just off of San Francisco that housed a prison up until the 1960's. We got the boat across which took about 30 minutes. You think we'd be used to boats by now but made us both feel a bit sea sick. Once we were on land though, we were fine. We were welcomed to the island by a tour guide and then went into a section of the building that had been converted to an auditorium to watch a documentary about the history of the prison. We then were given an 'Escapes Tour' which involved being shown various buildings around the island and being told of the various escape attempts over the years. As far as they are aware, no one has successfully escaped from Alcatraz, although there are 5 men that were never found, assumed drowned but no bodies have ever been found. Which has opened up many a conspiracy theory! It was really interesting. We then did the audio tour of the actual prison block itself. You had your own set of headphones and mp3 player so you could stop and the audio commentary whenever you wanted to. It took you through all areas - the canteen, the prison cells, even the warden's office. Real prisoners and guards spoke on the commentary, it was so interesting and the way it was done really took you back to when the prison was still running. After that we looked around the grounds, there was alot there as guards and their families lived on the island too, away from the main prison. We left a few hours later, it was a really good day!

Whilst in San Francisco, we discovered The Cheesecake Factory. It's a restaurant that specialises in, you guessed it, cheesecakes! But they do all sorts of other food aswell and it's amazing. The cheesecake is delicious and the portions are all really generous, so much so we took half our dinner back with us!

We also went to Golden Gate Park, it's huge and we went on a really nice so was good to wander around the gardens and big lake. We saw Calfornia Academy of Sciences building which is really impressive, unfortunately too pricey for us to go in so we just admired from afar! There was also the Japanese Tea Garden and Botancial Gardens.

We had a good time in San Francisco, although it wasn't what either of us expected. We can't really say what we did expect as such, but it just didn't have the 'vibe' we thought it would. It wasn't like LA, it wasn't like other cities we've been to, but we had a good time and got to see everything we wanted. Next we're onto Vegas! Let's hope we don't lose the little money we have left on gambling!