california hints and tips

Alcatraz is excellent - really atmospheric, with a superb headphones tour - but you should always book as far in advance as you can (at least a month) or you might not get on a tour. The old cable car ride from Market St to Fisherman's Wharf is also fantastic. It costs around $3 single, I think. Chinatown is a good place to walk around, too. SF is a great city - probably the nicest in the US.
I agree that Lake Tahoe is stunning but the architecture isn't. It's a fair journey from SF. Not been to Yosemite but have heard it's truly awe-inspiring.

go to Vegas for a couple of days. i would say for me that was so different - something i had never seen before - that it would have been one of my highlights. i was not that wild on LA but then i am sure there are things off the beaten trail that the tourist doesnt know. we also visited Hurst Castle where the Great Gatsby lived which was not too bad. historically interesting if anyone likes the movie. Vegas best for me.

hi, Alcatraz is excellent, you can do a night tour, which is about 7.30pm. this then lets you sign up once on the rock to see other areas of the prison that are not normally accessable during the daytime tours. if they are staying for a week i would suggest going down to the pier on their first day and booking for a trip. we have been twice now and there are always tours available but i have heard that they do get busy.

also you can ride an old fashion fire engine across the golden gate bridge. a friend of mine booked this when she stayed in sfo and loved it. they give you wine a blanket and ring a loud bell.

there are only a couple of the old fashion style cable cars running and these get busy during the day, so go early or come back late. but worth squeezing on with all the other tourists.

and if wine is something that is of any interest there are wine tasting trips to nappa valley which are well worth the look.

look out for the bums on street corners though, around the central hotel areas, restaurants, china town there seem to be a lot of beggars looking for spare change mam. (not a highlight)

Aggh I had just typed loads about my trip last September and my antivirus update took me away from the page and it all went.

I will start again

we went to California in September did a few theme parks six flags magic mountain (Wally world from lampoons vacation) then to San Diego and Tijuana, then to Vegas to San Francisco back to LA via highway 1 and then to Vegas for 1 night to see Oasis at the house of blues.

LA is huge, lots of neighbourhoods really close together, 1 minute your in Beverley hills the next its almost a slum. Hollywood isn’t a nice area and we ran out of fuel almost I didn’t want to stop. I wouldn’t do any of it on foot, it is to big a place. Things to do, Universal studios, Warner studios, shopping in the Beverley centre we had a whistle stop tour of the place as we didn’t really have enough time due to the trip back to Vegas.

San Diego was nice went to SeaWorld and they have a zoo. We also took the trolley (tram) to the border and went in to Mexico it’s like a different world and a pain as you’re constantly bombarded by people drink here eat here after a bit we dived in to a taxi and got the hell out of there back to the border. getting out of Mexico was daunting US customs want to know everything about your trip we were only there a few hours what else can we do. LOL. Nice place and really relaxed. A friend told us to take a trip to La Jolla pronounced la hoya what a stunningly beautiful place well worth the 40 minutes diversion stopped for lunch and had a walk.

Las Vegas it’s like Blackpool on steroids. The strip is where all the big hotels and casinos are, you are free to walk in and out all day look around and not put any thing in the machines, some things cost rides in New York New York and the stratosphere tower but they were good. and some shows. I was expecting it to be tacky but it wasn’t, watch out the flicky flicky people giving call girl cards out there are loads of them. The real Las Vegas as I call it is at Freemont street all the neon the cowboy and Sally, Golden nugget old school Vegas is brilliant they now have a huge screen over the street and it shows videos every 15 minutes during the evening. it is downtown LV. don’t forget to take a look for "Biffco" you remember back to the future 2 when biff get rich, the building used for biffco is the Plaza hotel at the end of Freemont street.
The hotels on the strip are unbelievable, if time is limited checkout the Luxor pyramid, you won’t believe how big it is inside. The fountains at the Bellagio there are 4 different shows each 25 minutes apart supposedly every 30 minutes but they last 5 minutes. Sirens at Treasure Island shows every 45 minutes at night but do get cancelled if it is windy. The mirage volcano. White tigers are there too from Siegfried and Roy. A walk round the Venetian is pretty nice the sky was a bit freaky. Ohh the lions in the MGM Eifel tower in Paris and the shopping at Casers palace and Treasure Island are both really good.
A trip to the Grand Canyon is a must we took a helicopter and you don’t realise the size of the "hole" until your at the bottom of it having a champagne picnic is 115 degrees heat in the shade we that’s what the thermometer said. The coach trips out there take over 12 hours so flying is the only way to go if your time is limited. There is a monorail that runs from MGM up to the Sahara at the back of the strip it is a good way to get around but you do find you have to walk through the casinos. infact everything is set out so you go through the casinos. And don’t try to take photos of the playing areas security don’t like it. A free show is in the Tropicana people swinging from the ceiling is pretty good especially with the limited space. the shows on in the casinos are huge productions, and the choice is huge Barry manilow, Celine Dion, Penn and teller (I wanted to see but it wasn’t on) Blue man group in the Luxor or you have the classic show girls show Follies Beggere at the Tropicana they have 2 versions of the show covered up and the topless one you can usually get free or BOGOF tickets for most of the smaller shows like follies. most casinos have a large free to play bandit near one of the door hit the button and see what you win normally tickets for the shows or decks of cards ect. to pick them up you have to walk through the gamming floor yeah there is alot of walking to be done the floors are huge and like a maze we stayed for 5 days and I don’t think we used the same route out of the hotel once.

San Francisco is a nice city, their hotel is just out of the central area only a few blocks so its not that bad, it is about 1.5 mile from pier 39 and fisherman’s wharf were you get the boat to Alcatraz Remember San Francisco isn’t flat the hills are tough I'm a reasonable fit 20somthing and it was hard sometimes especially with the heat. I booked online in advanced and saved a bit of money http://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/ the clime up the hill to the cell block is a killer 4 switch backs it takes about 0 minutes to get up there. The tour is really good and you learn alot about the history of the place.
The cable car system is fun, especially when empty pick your feet up and slide up and down the bench seats which are really shinny. The queues for them at the turn around areas are huge so try to get on them in the middle of the route they are pretty expensive too I think $5 a ride but it’s the thing to do if you’re a tourist in San Francisco. Pier 39 is really nice and all the street entertainers are good we spent an evening being entertained for free a guy fire eating and walking on glass. Food wise we were staying at fisherman’s wharf so we went to the hard rock cafe at pier 39 which was good and they had a live band on too. After we went o Alcatraz a friend came and picked us up and took us for a tour of the city, Haight-Ashbury, Golden gate park, Lombard street, a museum (palace of fine arts) where they have a huge dome which was pretty people get their wedding photos taken there and there were 2 parties when we were walking round. we went over the golden gate bridge, she even took up in to the hills on the other side of the bay to get some really nice photos of the city with the bridge in the foreground, up to twin peaks and to the beach in Presidio where we went in the Pacific ocean.
if they drive in san Francisco watch out for the trolley buses don’t get too close to them as they keep jumping of the wires and get stuck ohh and if they have GPS it doesn’t work very well because of the trolley buss electric wires.

From San fran we drove down the pacific coast highway or highway 1 it was an incredible trip the scenery is fantastic and I loved throwing the car round the bends roof down and foot to the floor. The trip took about 12 hours in total with fuel stops and food stops it was tough if I was to do it again I would properbly stop at either Santa Monica or Santa Barbara and finish the drive the next day. But I wanted to be in Hollywood to go to Universal the following day.

In LA we did universal the Hollywood bowl to see Oasis then went down to Anaheim which was about an hours drive due to traffic yeah it was only about 30 miles you cant go anywhere fast. Did a few days at the Disney parks then went back to Vegas for another Oasis concert. When we return to LA the day after we went for a quick drive round and realised how different the different areas of LA are it was scary even in places like Hollywood boulevard were a little uninviting you can drive 50 metres and you feel like your in a different country not nice I wouldn’t like to walk round there I was nervous driving with the roof down we saw most of the sights but missed the Hollywood sign as it was getting dark and I don’t know where it was really and Tom Tom didn’t have it either.

I hope this helps I just realised its 3:35 so I should really go to bed. I will do more as I remember it.