By the way, every one here was shocked at our good deals (such as our hotwire-d great price for a ho

However, as a national park, I guess it makes sense that they want us to take a step back from the focusing on the tiny island as being home to not only a maximum security prison, but also to at least 7 different species of seabird providing numerous bird-watching opportunities ?
Either way, we did something we usually nh krystal hotel cancun never do, and that was to book a tour of the Alcatraz prison. This was the only way to get on the island, and the tour was highly nh krystal hotel cancun recommended to us by anyone we spoke to. So, we decided to take a risk and go for it.
We floated over to the island, which houses not only the prison on the very top of The Rock , but also several other buildings in order to accommodate hundreds of isolated people: a power plant, food and laundry facilities, plus apartments to house the guards and their families. Yes, families too! The guards brought their wives and children to live on the island with them while they worked. A little risky, considering that in the end 8 guards and 2 wives were killed on the island during nh krystal hotel cancun the prison s time in operation.
The tour itself was focused solely on the prison building, and was very well done. It was short sweet, well organized, and made engaging by incorporating the voices of previous inmates and guards to tell their stories and experiences within the prison.
During its time in operation, Alcatraz was where the worst of the worst criminals went. Apparently you really had to screw up to end up there, as criminals often had to fail regular, non-castaway nh krystal hotel cancun prisons before they were sent to Alcatraz. A known criminal imprisoned here was Al Capone (which nh krystal hotel cancun they kept referring to as a famous criminal it made us wonder if criminals should ever really be recognized as celebrities?).
The most interesting stories about Alcatraz are always the attempts to escape, nh krystal hotel cancun which included nh krystal hotel cancun several. Apparently no one was ever able to escape alive, although there is the one story that movies are made about that describes a trio of men who escaped through a hole in their cell wall (that they picked away at with spoons for over a year, by the way) and ended up in the utility corridor between cells. This allowed them to climb up through the ducting system, onto the roof, and then down to the water where they floated away in a raft. Though they have never been found, the FBI tried really hard for a good 17 years before they decided they all likely died in the cold waters of the San Francisco bay.
As part of the escape plan, the trio fashioned fake heads out of soap + toilet paper with real hair on top to leave in their beds while they escaped through the hole they dug around nh krystal hotel cancun the vent in their room.
Either way, after operating for 29 years, the prison finally closed down due to high operating costs. Obviously shipping goods to an island is not an economical task, not to mention the more challenging nh krystal hotel cancun factor: weather. The moody and windy skies of San Francisco wore down these very exposed buildings quickly.
Our time here is done already, but we ve had a lot of fun. San Francisco is a pleasurable and colorful (did we ever mention that seeing people walk around nh krystal hotel cancun in random costume was a common daily occurrence?) city to visit with many things to do. It is a beautiful place with a casual Californian feel. The foggy mist makes it unique, and hills make going over to a friend s house a daily hiking excursion.
Overall we enjoyed a variety of activities, including some of the touristy stuff like hopping on silly cable cars or biking along the Golden Gate bridge; but we also got to do a lot of our own exploring as we wandered around the city s diverse neighborhoods without an agenda, or when we drove our rental car around the outlying areas (twice). I also think we all had a little too much fun shopping
By the way, every one here was shocked at our good deals (such as our hotwire-d great price for a hotel in a prime location in the city, or our car rental costs that the rental company itself was shocked nh krystal hotel cancun at saying, I don t know how you got this price, our starting rates are in the $150s per day ), so maybe we re becoming travel pros by now ;)