We had to take a trolley ride!
It is difficult to see in the picture, but our hotel is the one with The Palace on the top. It is the oldest hotel in San Francisco. It is really a beautiful hotel and right in the middle of the city!
Pier 39
Napa!
This was our first stop. We did a tour and tasting at this place! They make yummy champagne!
Our second stop, Rubicon winery! This winery is owned by the Coppola family as in Francis Ford-Coppola!
This tree was on the property. It has both oranges and lemons, on the same branch. I have never seen anything like it!
We at lunch at this amazing winery! The building was old but very beautiful!
Our third stop was the Robert Mondavi winery, the oldest winery in California!
This is a statue of St. Francis, the patron saint of nature and animals...and wine?
Mondavi wine barrels!
Our last stop was the Beringer winery!
This house was built by the original Beringer proprietor. It is gorgeous, and they use it now for wine tastings!
These bottles date back to the 1940's!
Beringer winery had tunnels that were used to store wine back in the day. They still use them for storage and for tastings and parties!
We also took a day trip to Sausalito! It had great shopping and beautiful houses...very expensive houses!
A little rock art in Sausalito! They had some great art galleries one of which had some original art by Dr. Seuss!
Just one of the examples of some of the fun things one can see in San Francisco!
Alcatrez
Something that I found interesting and never knew about Alcatrez is that there were several families that lived on the tiny island. There were schools, and stores and a small post office. I guess I thought that the guards and staff simply lived in the city and only worked here. They said that they never felt unsafe or even locked their doors. I am not sure I would be ok with my children inhabiting a tiny island with a man named "Machine Gun" Kelly...
This man was an inmate at Alcatrez for several years. He was there to talk about his experience which was very interesting. He was one of only six inmates that was actually released from Alcatrez! The others either died at Alcatrez or were taken to other facilities when they finished their time there.
Solitary confinement...very creepy.
The cells are tiny, but the inmates seemed to use what space they had to make it their own.
This is a very small window in one of the halls that looks out over San Francisco.
This is another view of the city from the prison. This is basically what the inmates saw when they got a glimpse outside parts of the prison. It is just a mile away but very out of reach. There were several escape attempts because I am sure a mile swim seems attainable, but that water is miserably cold and rough.
I will leave you with this picture. This is just one of the houses that I would be happy to live in if we lived in Napa, had a lot of money and did not mind living in walking distance from one of the oldest wineries in California!
