Angels & Alcatraz

It was my birthday last month and we planned a visit to the famous Angels Island & Alcatraz Jail. We were just in time for the cruise trip at 9 in the morning. Our first destination was the Angels Island State Park, which provided an hour of tram tour around the island, it hosts great views of the golden gate bridge, and many more attractions on the way, I particularly like the place with huge eucalyptus trees which smell divine.

After the tram travel, we headed to a park nearby for lunch, and were back on the cruise to sail to Alcatraz. We were so eager to visit it, and it did not disappoint us. There was an audio tour inside the jail and we spent hours looking around. There was a good collection of flowers and birds. And it was amazing to learn its history, the cop families who stayed there, the facilities provided and of course the inmates and their survival.

There were marks of gun shots of the time few inmates tried to escape. We also saw the rooms of the 3 inmates who planned the great escape where they dug the walls and placed a dummy body on their beds, but there are no records of their where-abouts, some claim they perished in the ocean while some claim they had a successful exit.

Then there was the recreation yard, prison library, the prison kitchen, the visitation areas, the morgue, the various regulations set for the inmates, some beautiful rooms, the isolated rooms as a severe punishment, the closure and much more. There were many movies made on Alcatraz (also called The Rock). All in all, it was a very knowledgeable tour.