San Francisco and Alcatraz

The state parliament

We spent a few days in the city whilst we were there.  It is a really pretty city, and I can see the attraction with it, it has great bars and restaurants, and the taxis are soooo cheap! So you never even need to use public transport.  It really is the country of the car over there.

This was my first ever visit to the US, I don't know, I had never really felt the burning desire to visit before.  So I'm glad that this trip came up.  I wasn't sure what to expect, I mean American culture permeates so much of your pop culture references that a lot of the time I literally felt like I was on a movie set.  A lot of their public services really look like they are straight out of Total Recall (the original version of course), their main public transport, the BART, which I think means something like Bay Area Rapid Transport and is their light rail service, literally looked like a mining vehicle from an 80s futuristic movie.  So boxy, and with carpet!  Who puts carpet in public transport?

Two of the seals at Pier 39

Dave with Alcatraz in the background

We even got a counterfeit coin out of the ticket vending machine.  I've never seen a counterfeit coin before, in fact I've never seen counterfeit money before, and they certainly hadn't tried to make it look like a quarter. But obviously it was the right dimensions to fool the vending machine.  Too bad we only used the BART once, so we couldn't offload it.  But once we arrived in San Francisco proper we realised how cheap the taxis were. No more public transport for us!

Pier 39 with the seals as far from the humans as they could get

One of the cells used by an escapee, never caught

The one thing that did get to me was the incredible disparity in wealth there.  A lot of people say that San Francisco is particularly bad, and that say New York has hardly any homeless, but there were so many of them.  It was fairly overwhelming for me.  London really doesn't seem to have that many, and Sydney wasn't so bad either.  But literally every 10 metres or so there would be another homeless person.  And a lot of them looked really freaking crazy.  They should be in a hospital or something, getting medical attention, not living on the streets!

We were in the city for 3 days, and during that time, a homeless person nearly punched us, another abused us, and we saw one pissing in the street.  This was from a tourist bus, so it's not like we were in a rough area of town, on a main street, at maybe 1pm, a guy just peeing away.  And it wasn't a little pee, we were there for a traffic light rotation, and he was still going when we pulled off.  But then if you don't have any public toilets, people have needs after all.

One thing that did surprise me was there were no Big Issue sellers, I mean if a place needs a Hand Up, it felt like it was San Francisco.  We have a Big Issue seller in Hampstead, his patch is outside the local Tesco, and the other night he was standing there having a beer with someone who had just done their shopping.  A bit different from the homeless in San Francisco, who seemed to either be completely crazy or have completely lost their humanity.

The view of Alcatraz

The prisoners got to listen to radio, by plugging into these two holes

And yet next to the streets with all the homeless there would be de Beers, and Prada, and Gucci.  It's like there's a Lord of the Flies undercurrent going on, but the normal people are oblivious to it.  We're driving home one night (in a taxi of course) and people are fighting over what they pull out of bins.  It's like they had lost all veneer of civilisation and were just animals.  Freaking scary! Especially as in the Walmarts you can buy massive knives, we didn't see any guns, well a BB-gun, but does that really count if people are carrying enormous gutting knives?  I guess there is at least that, no guns in the Walmart, at least the one we visited, a lot of ammo, but no actual handguns.

It's a real juxtaposition, because

The fog really rolling in

we ate at some really nice restaurants, and visited some great bars.  Apparently they don't have the problem with alcohol which is such an issue in Australia.  And every restaurant also has a great bar, with all the spirits you could want. It was a real different feeling to both London and Australia.  I can imagine you could have a great night out in San Francisco (if you manage to avoid the scary homeless people).

The exercise yard at Alcatraz

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't go during the full-on election round.  They were just gearing up for their conventions at the time, so the money hadn't fully unleashed.  I think the estimates are something like $5 billion to be spent on advertising during the campaign.  But then I think they are getting much better at targeting the money to the swing states, and I imagine California doesn't really classify as a swinging state.  So even if we were there now, I imagine we wouldn't be experiencing the full-on Super PAC onslaught.

I'm really glad I did finally get there, and I'm actually really keen to check out New York now, hopefully there really are fewer homeless people there.  But enough about the really weird society over there, and it is a really weird society.  It seems that people don't seem to realise they can't all be the 1%-ers.

View of the Bay Bridge and the city

One of the main things we did there was get out to Alcatraz.  And I would recommend it, it was quite good, unfortunately we were in a bit of a rush that day, so I would take your time if you can.  Plan for at least 3.5 hours, then you can relax.  And get the earliest ferry you can, and book online ahead.  We did, and if we hadn't there was no way we were going.  This place sells out weeks in advance.  You get an audio guide with the ticket, and it really is pretty good.  It takes you through a bit of the history, and the escape attempts.  When you are on the island you wonder why there weren't more attempts, I mean it really is not far to the mainland, an hour or so of swimming and you would be there.  But then you forget about the beauty of the Gulf Stream, they don't have that on the West Coast, the water is 15 degrees or something.  You wouldn't last that long in water that cold.

Whilst we were there we got to see the fog roll in, and it really does roll in.  San Francisco has the most amazing localised weather.

Napa Valley

The Golden Gate bridge sans fog

We were in San Francisco for a week, just at the end of summer.  And I managed to actually get burnt.  Finally some sun in this hemisphere!  One thing I really wanted to do was visit Napa Valley whilst I was there.  I don't know, maybe it was the movie Sideways, talking up Californian wines, but I had always wanted to go if I had the chance.  Luckily we have a friend who is a San Franciscan local and he offered to drive us out there, which was very kind of him, especially given the slightly scary 10 lane super-highways they have in that country.

Looking back across the bay to the city

Life doesn't get much better than this, Champagne without a cloud in the sky!

It was a perfect day, really if you are in San Francisco and you have the chance, don't pass it up.  The wines were really good.  We went a bit crazy at a few of the wineries we visited, this cost us when we tried to check in on the return journey.  A tip I've learned, always fly with a spare, empty bag, just in case.  Apparently the baggage staff don't like lifting 30 odd kilograms in one go.

I didn't appreciate how dry California would be, at some points during the day it felt like I could have been back in country NSW, apart from the fact that Hunter Valley wines are horrible.

The dry, dry Californian country side, the vineyards were so contrasting

The wineries are really well set up there, beautiful locations, and most of them seem to serve food as well.  They are almost wine bars, more than cellar doors, a lot more effort has gone into the appearance than is normally the case say in Australia.  Though a consequence of that is that you have to pay for all the tastings, but then the tastings are actually more like full glasses of wine, rather than the little pipette squeeze you can sometimes get.  Just a suggestion, don't drive there, unless you have a very kind friend who is willing to forgo the pleasures.

The view from one of the cellar doors - could almost be Gundagai

We even got to see a bit of the Indy Car race, one of the wineries had a view overlooking the hill where the race was held.  So you were far enough away not to really hear the car engines, but you could watch them race if you wanted to.  Indy Car seems like a fair idea for a race, they all have to race in exactly the same car, so it must be more down to the driver you would think than say Formula One might be.  In fact it seems so fair, it's a wonder Australia didn't come up with the idea.  I mean just look at AFL right?

Hanging in Snowdonia

Harlech castle was the plains spread out below

After the epic drive we had finally made it to north Wales, and I have to say, whilst I really like Pembrokeshire, I think I definitely have to explore this area a bit more.  It feels a lot more wild up in the north, well as wild as the UK can ever really get, which means you are maybe 40 minutes drive between tea houses, as opposed to 30 minutes elsewhere.

It's up in the north that the castles really ramp up in frequency and size, I guess because of the wildness the original inhabitants could put up more of a fight against the English than the southerners.  It's here that Edward I built some of the most famous castles, Caernarfon, Harlech, Beaumaris.

Caernarfon Castle on a rainy day

A tower on top of another tower

We stopped off at Harlech castle, didn't go inside.  It's in a great spot though, on a rocky outcrop above the massive plain stretching out below.  Apparently when the castle was built the sea actually reached the rock upon which it sat, the sea has certainly receded a lot in the intervening 800 years.

The castle that we went inside was Caernarfon, it was here that Edward II was born, and he was the first English Prince of Wales.  Since that time, 1301, this title has been held by the British monarch's eldest son.  Caernarfon was the grandest of the castles built by Edward, there were a lot of modern (for the time) ideas used in the construction.  The walls were like the walls of Constantinople, with bands of coloured rocks, and the arrow slits were actually 3 slits in one, in that 3 archers could fire through each slit at different angles.  It really looked quite impenetrable from the outside.  But inside it was never really finished.  I guess the Welsh eventually kind of gave up the fight, particularly when the Tudors claimed the throne, being partially Welsh themselves.

I think the weather in Pembrokeshire is definitely better than up north.  When we visited the castle it was absolutely bucketing down, and when we drove through Snowdonia the winds were almost gale force.  I can kind of understand how people die up there, if the weather changed and you weren't prepared than you could be in a spot of bother.  I haven't got a good feel as to how extensive the park is though, it didn't feel particularly huge, but perhaps it is possible to head off into the wilderness and not see or hear a car for a while.

The peaceful coast of north Wales

The colours were amazing there, up north I mean.  Driving back from Harlech in the dusk we had to pull over in a little town, just to watch the sun setting

I'm not sure where next in Wales, we haven't yet visited the Brecon Beacons, which is a mountain range just north of Cardiff, so maybe there next summer.  And perhaps another trip to Snowdonia, just to get out into the mountains and see how wild it really is.

Heading to Snowdonia

Cilgerran Castle ruins

After our time in Pembrokeshire we started heading north, up the coast of Wales, to Snowdonia.  Now Wales really is a country of castles, after the Norman invasion they straight away started building their timber and earth mound fortifications.  Things really got going during Edward I's reign, Edward I is the grandson of the King John of Robin Hood stories.  It was Edward I who really set out to subjugate the Welsh, so building the castles and filling them with English people was his way of showing his domination over the local people.

Dave and the forest seen from the castle, plus a manor in the  distance

Walking around the wetlands

On the way up north we stopped at one of the 100 or so castles still standing.  Just outside Cardigan is Cilgerran castle, it's built overlooking the river Teifi and is surrounding by forest.  It is here that Nest, the so-called Helen of Wales, was supposedly abducted.  Nest was the daughter of one of the last (local) kings of Wales.  Her family also apparently owned Carew Castle, which was one of the castles we visited near Narberth.  This was built in the 1100's, so it's a pretty old one, mainly just a ruin now though.

What was most interesting is that the ticket vendor actually grew up in Coventry, and when he learned we were from Australia, he started to tell us all about Parkes, who is known as the Father of Federation in Australia.  Apparently this guy went to the same school as him, and grew up down the road from Parkes' old house.  He wrote down the address and everything for us.

Can you spot the otter hide?

Aberaeron's pretty harbour

Also in this little town there was a wildlife wetland centre, which promised an otter hide.  Not being able to resist the call of a possible otter sighting we headed out.  Unfortunately there were no otters to be seen.  It was the middle of the day, which is not known to be a busy wildlife time.  We did manage to see some sort of bird of prey, but without my binoculars or birding book I can't give a definitive name.  I was thinking golden eagle, but then I found out there are only about 10 pairs of those, and they all live in the highlands of Scotland, so I'm thinking it was actually something much more mundane.

The boats at low tide

There was one more stop we made on the way up north, and for anyone doing a drive through in 

Wales I would highly recommend this town.  It was Aberaeron, it's not like some place that I would say is a must-see, but if you are looking for a lunch spot, or somewhere to stretch your legs, then you can't go past this place.  It's got a pretty harbour lined with painted Georgian terraces.  Back in the 19th century it was quite wealthy, now it is much like the rest of Wales, but the pretty houses and orderly streets remain.  And the harbour is filled with holiday boats.

St Paul's

St Paul's from Paternoster Square

We finally managed to get along to St Paul's recently, which is pretty bad of us, since it's such a dominant feature in London.  We bought our tickets online (the only way to do it), though to be honest there was almost no line anyway.  We did manage to get there fairly early, and the Europeans never seem to get out the door before 10am, perhaps that helped.

Your ticket comes with an audio guide, which was pretty good.  I think I would have preferred a little more history and architecture though, it seemed to focus fairly heavily on the religious aspects.  Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside the cathedral, which is a shame, it is a really nice building, and the crypts were a bit of a highlight.

In the 1666 great fire, St Paul's was almost completely destroyed, so the man of London, Christopher Wren, was tasked with rebuilding it.  The 'new' version is quite different from the old, in that the original version was much smaller and much more gothic.  What really stands out is of course the dome, which at 110m high, comes in behind only St Paul's in Rome.  It's a double shell dome, in that the massive creation you see is a shell around a smaller cone in the middle.  So when you climb up to the very top, you are actually climbing right up between the two shells.

Paternoster Square, from the top of St Paul's

View of the city from the top of St Paul's

Probably one of the more famous features of St Paul's is the whispering gallery, again up in the dome, the idea is that if you speak into the wall the person opposite you will be able to hear you as if you were next to them.  It was pretty freaky, but it's not all that easy to achieve, you really have to be standing the right way and speaking into the correct part of the wall and speaking at the correct volume.  Luckily there was a tour guide up there at the time who took pity on us and showed us how to do it.  It is pretty cool once you get it working.

The crypts are also really good.  Some of the tombs down there were caught in the fire, so are partially blackened.  Lord Nelsons tomb is one of the best, the tomb is actually one that Cardinal Wolsey had made for himself.  But when he feel out of favour with Henry VIII the grand sarcophagus went into storage.

It is kind of expensive to visit, at about 15 pounds per person. I always find it strange to have to pay to visit a church, but I guess they need the money to help in the upkeep.  It must have been doubly hard for the clergy during the Occupy protests, since they set up literally right outside St Paul's.  By doing so they were deterring

View from St Paul's across to the Tate Modern

tourists visiting the cathedral, but then the church couldn't be seen to be sticking the boot into the protesters, who were ostensibly sticking up for the poor.  That led to a few resignations amongst the clergy as they tried to answer the question, What Would Jesus Do?

What is also really weird is the square right next to St Paul's, literally adjoining it, Paternoster Square, is actually owned by a private company, and there is no public right of way through it.  Pretty weird, since public right of ways seem to exist almost everywhere else, but not through something right in the middle of the city.  This means that the Occupy protesters really had no chance of occupying this square, even though this was really their target, since the London Stock Exchange is in one of the buildings facing the square.

Hanging in Pembrokeshire

St Davids cathedral

Recently we got to spend a whole week in Wales, we spent half the time in Pembrokeshire and then headed up to Snowdonia for the rest.  What can I say, I really like Wales.

Nearly all the days in Pembrokeshire were perfect sunny weather, though still perhaps not quite warm enough to venture into the sea.  We also managed to finally get out to St Davids, which is officially Britain's smallest city, and a bit of the tourist attraction in these parts.

In the past, in order to be classified as a city you had to have a cathedral within your town limits. Though this link was abolished in 1888, the citizens of St David lobbied the Queen to get their city status back, which they received in 1994.  So St Davids, a town with only 1600 inhabitants, is a city once more.

The ruins of the Bishops Palace

St David cathedral from the bell tower

St David is actually the patron saint of Wales, and he founded a monastery here way back in 550, and it became one of the most important Christian shrines.  I'm not really sure why this was, it doesn't seem like St David actually did anything spectacular, nor did he die some gruesome death.  The only thing I could find was that he raised a new hill, which in Wales is not all that different.  And a dove landed on his shoulder at some point.  I mean doesn't really compare to St Patrick does it.

Through some clever manoeuvring a later Archbishop of St Davids managed to get the Pope to declare that two pilgrimages to St Davids was worth one to Rome, and three visits was worth one to Jerusalem.  So that probably explains it's popularity, especially amongst the British.  I'm not sure how the Pope decided on the relative holiness of the different cities, but it seems to me that perhaps the Irish weren't as canny as the Welsh, because their saint is obviously way cooler.

The tower ceiling inside the cathedral

The Queen gets a special seat in the choir

The cathedral was quite pretty inside, it had a really long nave, with massive columns.  It seemed as if the floor had been build on a slant though, and I've never seen such a dramatic tilt in supporting columns as I saw there.  I hope someones keeping an eye on that, because it could almost rival the Tower of Pisa's lean.

Next to the cathedral is the ruin of the bishop's palace, this looked like it would have been a fairly impressive building, and apparently had lavish private apartments.  But this suffered during the reformation and there's not much left of it now.

During the 10th and 11th centuries the cathedral had the usual Viking attacks, and the current cathedral is from the 12th century.  It is a pretty little town, and the beaches nearby are, as is usual in Pembrokeshire, pretty nice.  When we visited there were even people swimming, but still not warm enough for us Australians to venture in.

Horses on the beach below Druidstone

What I assume is the coast path

On the way to St Davids we stopped off at Druidstone for lunch.  This seemed to be a spot for ageing hippies to hang out, it was all very new age.  I can imagine they have some pretty trippy events here.  As well as the hippies it also was a haunt for walkers.  It was literally on the coast path, so I can imagine it would be a popular spot for lunch.  And it did have a fairly spectacular view.

It was definitely an adventure getting to it though.  My GPS had no chance finding this place, so it was a bit of iPhone navigation, and desperate scanning of signs.  And these were the true Welsh back roads.  Literally single-lane roads (but traffic comes both ways) with massive stone walls or huge hedges on either side.  Every now and then there would be a passing spot, so if you met someone coming the other way it was always a bit of a stand off before someone would reverse.  I've never been on anything quite like that before.

So apparently I've just found out that this place has actually been running for 39 years.  Which I thought was kind of impressive.  It's also made it's way into the Good Food Guide, which again was a bit of a surprise, though we did manage to spend a very pleasant few hours there.

Taking in the view

Looking back to Druidstone

Bavaria or The Madness of King Ludwig

The view towards the Hohe Schloss from our hotel roof

We had an awesome weekend in Bavaria, it's weird, we were only there for 2 days and yet it feels much longer, especially given how much we managed to see.  The main reason for going was to visit Neuschwanstein castle, but we managed to fit in heaps of other stuff.  I think the main reason we could see so much is because we had a car, not that Dave or I were driving, a friend of ours had hired it.  The autobahns are as scary as you can imagine, I'm so glad it wasn't me driving, I don't think I would have managed it!  Some of the other drivers on the road were really quite insane, they would be trying to overtake you before you had completely exited their lane.  Let's just say I arrived at our destination completely drenched in sweat.  But we survived and had a great weekend, and that's the important thing.

Traditional Bavarian band

The main destination was Neuschwanstein castle, which is new Swan Castle, for those of you who have read my previous blog, yes I have been here before.  On the way to Fussen from Munich we stopped off at Starnberg Lake, where there were a couple of very typical Bavarian villages along the shores.  As an aside this is actually the lake where King Ludwig drowned, but that's Bavaria for you, it seems to be dominated by this guy.

Whilst driving along we stopped off at this massive park along the lake and went for a bit of a stroll.  In the distance we could hear what sounded like a concert, walking a bit further we came upon a sailing regatta and the pictured brass band playing to the sailors.  This was about 10am in the morning and it was good to see that nearly all the band players had massive steins in their hands.  How Bavarian!

The unassuming outside of the Wieskirche

The over-the-top interior of the Wieskirche

Driving further on we came upon a sign to a UNESCO world heritage site, it was for the Wieskirche, which is this slightly bizarre church out in the countryside, surrounded by massive carparks.  From the outside it looks a fairly standard white building, but then inside it's got the most amazing Rocco interior.  The artists just got completely carried away with it, gilding all over the place and wonderful sculptures, I can see why they might need the massive carparks in the high season.

After that it was straight onto Fussen, which I really recommend if you are visiting this area.  It's just like a Bavarian disneyworld, with all the hotels totally playing up their Bavarian-ness.

The impressive painted walls

View towards the mountains

Fussen lies on the shores of the Forggensee, which is actually a man-made lake, built to control the spring melt, apparently it is emptied out in October to get ready for the next spring.  It was quite nice wandering around the town, the Lech River flows through it, into the Forgensee, and it was quite a raging river, I can appreciate why you might want to control it.

What we were really there for though was the castles (or Schlosses) apparently in German their definitions are really strict as to what makes a castle (it has to have a dungeon or something).  We managed to get along to see the Hohe Schloss in the middle of the town, which is a former summer residence of the bishops of Augsburg.  It was built in the late 13th to 14th centuries, so

Fussen was so wonderfully Bavarian

pretty old.  When you walk into the main courtyard you notice these impressive gables and shutters, but upon closer inspection you can see that they are just painted on.  At first I thought it was some modern attempt at cost-cutting, but then I discovered that the painting was actually done in 1499.  It definitely doesn't look that old!

But we all knew that the real reason we were there was to see massive numbers of castles, we managed to pack in 3 in a day, plus a sneaky border crossing into Austria.  It was only visiting these three castles that I truly started to appreciate the madness of King Ludwig.

Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take any photos inside the castles, which is a shame, as I think it is the insane decorations which really show Ludwig II at his true potential.

Schloss Hohenschwangau

The pretty swan lake between the castles

The first castle we saw was the Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was Ludwig II's childhood castle.  This was built by his father, it seems that this family really had a mania for castles.  These castles are all relatively new, this one, the oldest we saw, was only built in the 1830's.  It was even electrified in the early 1900's.  This was basically the summer hunting residence for the family.  And it sure was in a pretty spot, overlooking the swan lake.  There were all sorts of hidden passages and secret doors throughout the place, mostly so that the servants could come and go unseen, refuelling the stoves all over the place.

There was also a secret passageway between the King and Queen's bedrooms, but once the King died and Ludwig II takes over he adds another layer of freakiness.  He gets a night scene painted on the ceiling of his bedroom, and gets holes cut where the stars were, so that servants could get up in there and light candles.  It's a really early version of those glow in the dark stickers you can buy.

Neuschwanstein castle, in the mist

The cookie-cutter Bavarian village by the castles

That was about as freaky as it got in this castle, it was onto the next one, about 300m away, where the freakiness ratcheted up a notch.  This is the classic, Neuschwanstein castle, which everyone comes to see.  It was here that Ludwig II could really let loose with his scary Wagner obsession.  At this point he was king of Bavaria, so could really open the Treasury purse strings.  Every room in the castle was devoted to a different scene in one of Wagner's operas, instead of a grand ballroom there was a theatre, with a stage and the scenery for yet another one of Wagner's operas.

These castles are all visited at a breakneck speed, you can only go as part of a tour group and they really bang the groups through.  Because there are not so many English groups, the ones they do have are massive.  It was only Neuschwanstein that was really bad though, it being the most popular by far.

View from Neuschwanstein

We had noticed on the way in, that there was a cable car up into the mountains in the next village over, and even though there was a bit of low hanging cloud, we thought why not.  You climb up to 1720m, and from there you get a great view into the Alps and out over the flat lands around Fussen.  Apparently it is a 2-3 hour walk from the top to the castles, but we didn't partake.  There is also a launching pad for hang gliders, which I have to say looked particularly scary.

View from the top of the Tegelberg

Schloss Linderhof

After that it was a picturesque drive through the Alps, into Austria and then back out to the last castle of the day, Linderhof. This was the smallest of his palaces, and whilst Neuschwanstein was disturbing for the Wagner obsession, this castle was just plain disturbing.  It was modelled off Versailles, and hanging inside were portraits of the French kings and queens, which was kind of strange.

Here, Ludwig would sleep all day and then stay awake all night, principally so he wouldn't have to see anyone.  He lived entirely alone here (apart from the servants of course) and went out of his way to avoid human contact.  The dining room had a dumb waiter installed in the centre of the table so that the servants didn't have to enter the room.  Though he also made sure that there were 4 places set every meal so he could talk to his imaginary guests.  It was all pretty weird.  He had audience rooms built in the castle, even though he knew he would never allow anyone to use them.

The impressive gardens of the Schloss

After a few years of his incessant castle building he was massively in debt and the government couldn't handle bailing him out anymore.  So they had him declared insane and removed from his position.  And a few days later him and his psychiatrist were found drowned in a lake, all very suspicious.  One thing which I found interesting though is that not once during the three tours was it talked about that his younger brother had already been found insane, this was why when Ludwig was deposed his uncle took over, rather than his younger brother.