Alcatraz Island is now part of the National Park Service, and you get to the island via Alcatraz Cruises, a private ferry company under contract with the National Park Service.  You should also know that space is limited and reservations are a must as they are frequently sold out weeks in advance.

When visiting Alcatraz Island, you should plan for at least a half-day.  During our visit we enjoyed an informative introductory video, and then opted for a well produced audio-guided tour.

The tour explained that Alcatraz was at first a military fort, and then a federal penitentiary.  Further, after the penitentiary closed, the island was taken over and occupied by American Indians before finally becoming a part of the National Park Service in the 1970s.

Disclosure:  our Alcatraz Island experience was provided by the cool folks at Alcatraz Cruises.  Thank you!  We had a great time.

Cafe Trieste - Jack Hirschman - Poet Laureate. Photograph by Christopher Michel Photography

Cafe Trieste ~ San Francisco, California – Over a half a century ago, Giovanni Giotta brought his family to America, and in 1956 “Pappa Gianni” brought his “old world” techniques and gave the west coast its first cup of espresso at his Cafe Trieste.

Cafe Trieste immediately became popular with the Italian residents of San Francisco’s North Beach.  However, it also became a very popular hangout for 1950s beatniks like Lawrence Ferlinghetti , Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan, Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Kenneth Rexroth and Neeli Cherkovski.

Jack Hirschman (pictured above), Poet Laureate of San Francisco, is still reported to be a regular patron of Cafe Trieste.

Further, it is told that Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather while sitting in the Cafe Trieste.

I can’t report that we had any famous beatnik sightings, but I can tell you that we enjoyed a marvelous cup of espresso, and the massive wall of photographs showing famous patrons over the years was a real walk down memory lane.

If you happen to be in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, you really should come sample the espresso and bath in the history of Cafe Trieste.

Here is a link to more Cafe Trieste photography from Christopher Michel.

Immediately percolating from the crowd were euphoric commendations for Blue Bottle Coffee.

Please understand, these were not just folks saying, “while you’re there you should” type suggestions.  No.  These suggestions were more akin to pining and lamenting as folks daydreamed about the day they had their first taste of San Francisco Blue Bottle Coffee.

With all the hubbub over this coffee, we arose on a brisk San Francisco Saturday morning, and made our way to the Blue Bottle Coffee location in San Francisco’s famous Ferry Market.

As we crossed the street to the market, we were serenaded by the guy in this short video, followed by the sweetest words imaginable to a couple of roaming baby boomers yet to have their morning caffeine fix.

I can still hear her voice, “do you want a latte“?

Not so fast, Missy, I thought to myself, and then I proclaimed, “I want to sample the best of Blue Bottle Coffee“.  Immediately, from behind the steaming coffee machines, a guy called out, “then you want the Gibraltar“.

He then went on to explain that the Gibraltar (pictured above) was an off-menu item,  and featured equal parts of their organic espresso and steamed organic milk.

“Sign me up“, I said, and immediately he went to work pounding, pouring, making swishy sounds from steel machines, and proudly set a large shot glass of caffeinated wonderfulness in front of me.

I took a sip of this steaming hot nectar and immediately my eyebrows raised, my mouth puckered just the slightest from the faint bitterness of the bean, and my eyes rolled back in my sockets from pure glee.

Wow!  That’s good!

As you have probably by now surmised, The Roaming Boomers® are gaga about Blue Bottle Coffee.  When you travel to San Francisco, you absolutely must get yourself some!

Agave (2010), by American Elliot Hundley, born 1975, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art- Photography by David A. Porter

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) – When The Roaming Boomers® are visiting a large metropolitan area, chances are very high that you will find us in the local museums.

While we are impassioned admirers of God’s creation, we also greatly enjoy the many mediums of man’s creation.

The San Francisco Museum of Art opened in 1935 and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art.

In 1975, the term “Modern” was added to the museum’s title to describe its purview more accurately, and the museum became The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Further, in 1995, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art moved to an iconic, 225,000 square-foot building designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta. (Photo:  Richard Barnes)

When we visit a museum, we love to participate in docent lead tours.  However, for this particular visit we opted for the free audio tour.  The museum has hundreds of informational audio descriptions on the highlights of their collection.

In our opinion, visiting a museums without at least an audio guide is nearly a complete waste of time.  Having a guide to share with you background and anecdotal information about the collection makes for a much more informed and valuable experience.

SFMOMA 5th-Floor Sculpture Garden

With audio players around our necks, we went to the top floor and worked our way down through the five-stories of the SFMOMA’s collection.

Modern art museums have a long-standing practice of exploring all facets and expressions of life.  Sometimes this expression is taken to the extreme fringes and becomes controversial, but we find modern art museums to be a place to explore another person’s world-view that invariably stimulates good conversation.

A good example of this is the SFMOMA’s U.S. premiere of Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870.

Image – Tom Howard, The Electrocution of Ruth Snyder, 1928; gelatin silver print; 4 x 4 in. (10.16 x 10.16 cm); Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase

Exposed traces how voyeuristic observation with cameras in the 19^th century influenced street photography in the 20th century. Moving beyond typical notions of voyeurism and surveillance as strictly erotic or predatory, the presentation will address these concepts in their broadest sense—in both historical and contemporary contexts—investigating how new technologies, urban planning, global intelligence, celebrity culture, and an evolving media environment have fueled a growing interest in the subject.  With the proliferation of cell-phone cameras, YouTube videos, security cameras, reality television, satellite views, and infrared technology, our potential to spy on others seems increasingly boundless.

The exhibit considered five themes of “forbidden looking” that the evolution of the camera brought about:

1. The Unseen Photographer
2. Voyeurism and Desire
3. Celebrity and the Public Gaze
4. Witnessing Violence
5. Surveillance

Through highly graphic, and sometimes deeply disturbing imagery, this exhibit puts in your face how “exposed” our world has become with the advent of photographic technologies.

Reading of Ruth Snyder’s execution in the electric chair is one thing.   Seeing it actually portrayed in a photograph is something altogether different.  A photograph penetrates the soul far deeper than than the individual imaginations we create from reading, or hearing about such an event.

After viewing the “Exposed” special exhibit, we were ready for something significantly lighter.

Popeye the Sailor Man came to our rescue:

We spent roughly five hours exploring the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s collection and didn’t even scratch the surface.  Furthermore, in this short post, we haven’t begun to share with you all the things we witnessed a well.

However, in closing, consider the wine-sniffing wall in the How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now exhibit.

We greatly enjoyed our visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and highly recommend that you consider this venue when you make a trip to San Francisco.

Disclosure:  Our experience was provided by the generous folks at SFMOMA.  Thanks!

The fascinating history of the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel begins with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, its Venetian Room hosted the debut of Tony Bennett singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco, and its presidential suite has been the San Francisco residence for every U.S. president since William Howard Taft.

Adding to the Fairmont’s impressive history is its remarkable perch upon San Francisco’s Knob Hill, its the only spot in San Francisco where each of the City’s cable car lines meet, and as of this writing is the recipient of the AAA Four Diamond Award as well as the Forbes Four Star Award.

Dining options at the Fairmont San Francisco hotel include the Laurel Court Restaurant (pictured left), and the very popular Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar.

Happy hour at the Hurricane Bar produced long lines and we heard that their Mai Tai was regularly voted the best in town!

We greatly enjoyed our visit to the historic Fairmont San Francisco Hotel.  Its central location on Knob Hill made exploring the city easy, and having the cable cars right outside the hotel’s door was a wonderful convenience.

Disclosure:  a portion of our stay was provided by the very kind folks at the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel.  Thanks a bunch!

Getting Carol to behave herself is a full-time job for me.  Carol was caught jaywalking as she was running across a San Francisco street and wound up pulling a stint in Alcatraz.

Says Carol, “I was only trying to help the California economy by making a purchase in a Chinatown discount store.  It certainly doesn’t merit being locked up in Alcatraz!”

All attempts at light humor aside, we visited Alcatraz yesterday and look forward to sharing the story of our visit and a few more of the photographs.

We also spent a few hours getting a behind the scenes tour of the sourdough breadmaker Boudin Bakery.  This company was the first sourdough baker (Est. 1849), and their “mother dough” is a priceless national treasure.

I will be sharing a video of Carol wrinkling her nose as she gets to actually smell the 160 year old mother dough.

Last, but certainly not least, we will be sharing our experience of eating in the most romantic, and delightful Italian eatery in San Francisco’s Knob Hill.  Unbelievable Italian cuisine.

Stay tuned!

At the California Academy of Sciences you can come nose-to-beak with penguins and parrots, watch sharks and sting rays cruise beneath your feet, and feel the spray of the California coast. Fly to Mars (and beyond the Milky Way!) from the safety of your planetarium seat, take a virtual safari in African Hall, or climb into the canopy of a living rainforest. Face your fears—and an albino alligator—inside the Swamp, and meet scientists as they return from research expeditions around the world. From the depths of a Philippine coral reef to the outer reaches of the Universe.

After spending the greater part of the afternoon at the California Academy of Sciences, we went to hang out with Papa Gianni, “Mamma” Ida, Fabio and Sonia Giotta at the Caffe Trieste.

From Wikipedia:

“The Caffe Trieste was opened in 1956 by Giovanni Giotta (aka “Papa Gianni”), who in 1950 had emigrated to San Francisco, California, from the small fishing town of Rovigno, Italy (now part of Croatia). Missing the espresso houses of Trieste, Italy, Giotta opened his own cafe. Caffe Trieste is said to be the first espresso house on the West Coast.

The original Caffé Trieste in San Francisco’s North Beach quickly became popular among the neighborhood’s primarily Italian residents. “It was all Italian people,” Giotta said of the neighborhood, “But I got the American people to like cappuccino.” Papa Gianni Giotta is known as “The Espresso Pioneer”, both in Italy and America, earning the label by having brought Espresso and Cappuccino to the West Coast, thus starting the Espresso Movement seen today. The company’s Licensing Program promises to open, on a one-by-one, “non cookie-cutter” basis, more Trieste locations in the SF Bay Area, Northern California, Southern California, the Southwest and East Coast areas.

The Caffé Trieste also becomes a convenient meeting place for Beat movement writers like Lawrence Ferlinghetti (still a regular) , Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan, Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Kenneth RexrothNeeli Cherkovski, who lived in North Beach in the 1950s and 1960s.^[2] Jack Hirschman, Poet Laureate of San Francisco, has also been a regular patron. The Caffe has been featured in several movies, on television and radio and in many photography books.^[3][4] Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather while sitting in the Caffé Trieste. Its is also the home of the internationally chronicled Caffe Trieste Saturday Concert, the longest running show in the City of San Francisco (since 1971). Giotta Family members Papa Gianni, Ida (matron) and children Gianfranco, Sonia and Fabio have set-up a musical vibe with their performances at the Caffes and about Northern California and beyond, starting with their first radio appearance in the SF Bay Area in 1953. That vibe has attracted many famous artists and entertainment personalities that have visited or frequented the North Beach location: Bill Cosby, Joey Reynolds, Michael Douglas, Chris Isaak, Armando Peraza, Paul Kantner, Boz Scaags, Robert Vaughn, and Vincent Price to name a few. In 2009, for example, Israeli poet Roy Arad visited the cafe and wrote about it in his diary [2]. It remains a favorite destination for writers, artists, hipsters, neighborhood residents, and tourists from all over the world. The Giotta Family has performed for celebrities such as Luciano Pavarotti and Frankie Laine, and has produced several videos and record albums, operates a newly built Hollywood Class recording studio (TRIESTE RECORDING STUDIOS) and is producing (together with Dissave Pictures of Berkeley, CA) a 90 minute documentary about founder and legend Papa Gianni Giotta, slated for release in 2010.”

After Cafe Trieste, we walked across the street to Ideale Restaurant where we enjoyed some authentic Italian fare.

Chef Maurizio Bruschi hails from four generations of roman chefs and was “lovingly” taught by his grandma, la nonna Serafina.

Another great meal, another great day, and now its time for some shut eye.

Tomorrow we venture to Alcatraz Island and will also visit Boudines, the creator of the famous San Francisco sourdough bread.

Stay tuned!

San Francisco, California ~ The first stop on our long weekend visit to San Francisco was the absolutely incredible Farmer’s Market at Ferry Plaza.

The farmers market is open three days a week—Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the smaller markets occupy the front of the building along the Embarcadero; on Saturdays, the much larger market is held both in front of the Ferry Building and on the rear plaza overlooking the Bay.  The markets offer fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, meats and eggs from small regional farmers and ranchers, many of whom are certified organic.  A wealth of other products include regional artisan specialties such as breads, cheeses and jams.  The Thursday market  features an array of artisan street food: wood-fired pizza, grilled meats, sandwiches, and tacos, while the Saturday market also includes local restaurants serving a variety of hot, delicious meals.

We have to thank Stephanie at Noshtopia for turning us on to this place.

We greatly enjoyed Cowgirl Creamery (pictured above).

The coffee from micro-roaster Blue Bottle Coffee was simply the best I ever had.  Ask for the off-menu “Gibraltar” for a taste of coffee straight from heaven above.

The macaroons at Miette will make your eyes roll back in your head as you proclaim a long, “ooooooh, that’s good!”

After filling our bellies with every imaginable delectable we hopped aboard one of the famous San Francisco cable cars, using our San Francisco CityPass, and made our way over to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

We will create more detailed postings about a few of these experiences when we get home.

Now, however, it’s time to get cleaned up for dinner.  Carol’s sister is driving over from Napa Valley and we’re headed out to dinner.

In parting, here’s last night’s sunset from the window of our Fairmont San Francisco room.

Stay tuned!

Tomorrow, we’ll tell you about more of our San Francisco roaming.

Being originally from the Midwest, and doing most of our flying out of Detroit, Michigan, we never really had the option to try a number of different airlines.  Detroit was a Northwest Airlines (now Delta) hub, and they provided the best routes for us to explore the world.

Now that we reside in Scottsdale, Arizona, that is no longer the case.

As you can perhaps ascertain from my “comic cam” photograph above, we chose Southwest Airlines to transport us from Phoenix to San Francisco.

I was very impressed.

There’s no first class, and also no assigned seating.  When Carol first told me about no assigned seating, well, I got a little pissy.  I imagined a hoard of people pushing their way onto the plane.

To my great surprise, they have a very orderly system that prioritizes who goes first into the plane based on a first come first served reservation system with “get to the head of the line” options for frequent flyers, those with Southwest Airlines credit cards, and those who are willing to put forth an extra $10 at the time of their reservation.

Then, at the boarding gate, they have developed a queuing system that got us all on board happily without having to push each other around.

Furthermore, it was crystal clear that Southwest Airlines spends a great deal of energy teaching their team to create a wonderful experience for their traveling guests.

Nice job Southwest Airlines!  I was very impressed!

Photograph from Fairmont San Francisco’s Facebook Page.

Our four night San Francisco long-weekend is going to be spent with our Fairmont Hotels friends in their historic Knob Hill property.  We both love the early-century grandeur of our country’s great hotels.

As you can see in the photograph above, the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel greeted us with a jaw-dropping elaborate marble lobby bedecked with a massive Christmas tree and a shimmering 20 foot gingerbread house.

Photograph from Fairmont San Francisco’s Facebook Page.

At evening-time we enjoyed a wonderful dinner in Fairmont San Francisco’s Laurel Court Restaurant and Bar.  I will tell you about this experience in a separate post.

Tomorrow we start the day in San Francisco’s famous farmer’s market, then off to a museum, shopping in Union Square and we will end our day in Chinatown’s famous Imperial Palace for some Peking duck.

Look for updates throughout the day on our  Roaming Boomers® Twitter account and we will share more with you tomorrow.