Today we are doing a bus tour over the Golden Gate to Sausalito and later a ferry ride and tour of Alcatraz.

In the early days San Francisco, it was predominantly Catholic. Fishermen’s Wharf was run by the Italians. 

If there is any flat land, it is made of sand/silt. 90% of the city was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906, not by the earthquake itself but mostly it was from fires. They used fill from the rubble from earthquake to level ground to make the worlds fair of 1915. 

Tunnels are not through mountains but are bridges for wildlife to cross over the highway. 

As we cross the Golden Gate Bridge, you cannot see the top for the fog. The colour of the paint of the bridge by the way, is called “international orange”. It is actually primer & so is rust proof. Good thing cuz of the dampness from the fog most days. As we “turn the corner” from the bridge toward Sausalito, there is not a stitch of fog to be had… just beautiful blue skies. How can that be!!!

Sausalito originally was started as a Portuguese fishing village because the Italians wouldn’t allow the Portuguese into SF. The village is built on the hillside. It was built using steel pins driven into rock so the houses were safe from earthquakes. 

There are a lot  bikes lanes along the  Marina. It has a reputation for being kind of like bohemian place … it’s always been a place for artistic and adventurous types. Artistic types would come to Sausalito to escape the strait jacket of San Francisco culture. In the 60s people could live for free along the shore as long as they were sleeping on something that floated.  They would use wooden stoves to cook with on the floats. There were horrific fires, in one fire, 1210 vessels were destroyed.  To solve the problem they made water lots that they gave to the people. Some people, when presented with the opportunity to become a landowner, sold their water lots and made money. Once you owned the lot then people would have to have floating dwellings built that were up to code. Portuguese descendants are still involved in the building and the repairing of boats.

There is a big sandy beach, next to the old hippie beach that back in the 60s and early 70s was a nude beach. 

Coming back across the Golden Gate Bridge, that was still shrouded in fog, you can see the Palace of Fine Arts… the only building left from the Worlds Fair. It actually has been totally reproduced to the millimetre but is now 100% earthquake proof. 

The cable cars of Nob Hill ….were built for the really steep hills   By the late 1870s when it became fashionable to for the richest and wealthiest people to build at the top of Nob Hill, it was no longer fashionable to have quarters in your mansion for the help so they had to have some way to get there.  There were at one time, 17 different cable car lines.  One company didn’t care if they made any money on fares because they were making all the wire rope for all of the other cable car lines.  The cable cars are just simple old-fashioned mechanical are now at only two different locations in the Fishermans wharf district area. Those cars are pulled by one continuous loop of steel cable, a half inch thick, that only last for three months….. very costly. But, a politician can’t afford to suggest getting rid of them or they will lose their job. Third rails cable car Golden Gate Bridge

Then to Alcatraz Island. 

It was the first permanent harbour fortification  on the West Coast. From 1861, it was used as a military prison up until 1934 when it became a US penitentiary. It was closed in 1963 by A.G. Robt. F. Kennedy.