About my love affair with San Fran

I didn’t wear flowers in my hair, or leave my heart there…but I did recently rekindle something of a love affair with what is so far my favourite American city.

My first visit to San Francisco was in 2009 and I was immediately struck by its vibrancy, its multi-culturalism, its stunning location, and its downright coolness. The ‘City by the Bay’ is an exciting and fun place to visit.

To be fair, I’ve only been to a handful of big cities over here. New York was equally cool, a must see US city; Los Angeles was a massive, busy, dirty sprawl and I wouldn’t go back; Las Vegas was a bit of fun; Pittsburgh is like Glasgow, an old industrial city newly reinvented; Tucson has a part Wild West, part Mexican feel; Phoenix is the desert city I now call home.

But when my son Kenneth arrived for a two-week holiday last month, I immediately booked a two-day, one-night side trip to San Fran for the two of us – a boys’ getaway if you like.

We flew into nearby Oakland Airport and took a boat across the bay, underneath the Oakland bridge, watched the city skyline unfold before us, and disembarked at one of the famous piers that line the waterfront. One of the first things that strikes you about San Francisco is how compact it is. Unlike many other American cities, everything is reasonably close to everything else.

Our first port of call was a trip to Alcatraz Island and the now disused prison they called ‘The Rock’. It’s a truly grim reminder of what life was like for the criminals who were the ‘worst of the worst. Al Capone was here, so was George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly – two of the most notorious gangsters of the Prohibition era.

But the man the prison guards feared most was a killer called Robert Stroud, aka the Birdman of Alcatraz. People who knew Stroud describe Burt Lancaster’s ‘lovable rogue’ portrayal of him as a comedy. Stroud, they say, was an animal. And to confuse matters, he was never allowed to keep birds in his cell at Alcatraz, that part of his life story was confined to Leavenworth Prison in Kansas.

A walk through the cell blocks, and a view of the conditions these men were kept in, can send a shiver down the spine. The regime was brutal but, to make matters 1000 times worse, these guys exercised every day in the prison yard – which commanded a panoramic view of the beautiful San Francisco skyline. Just in case they weren’t missing the outside world, there it was right in front of them.

Getting around San Francisco means a pass for the city’s cable cars. Of course, we hung off the side like a couple of daft tourists. The system is uniquely San Fran and was devised by Andrew Hallidie, the son of a Scotsman from Kirkpatrick-Fleming in Dumfriesshire.

Another reminder of Scotland is the old sailing ship Balclutha, now a US National Historic Landmark. She was built in 1886 at the former Charles Connell shipyard at Scotstoun on the Clyde and, after decades transporting cargo around the world, she is now an impressive addition to San Francisco’s Maritime National Historical Park.

The cable cars will drop passengers at the crooked Lombard Street, possibly the weirdest section of city street in the world. The story goes that the 27% gradient was too steep for cars to navigate so this was a way of slowing them down. It’s bizarre and quirky but, again, it fits in a city that is full of surprises.

On day two we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, ate and shopped on Pier 39, visited the Cable Car Museum, and discovered an excellent Irish bar for lunch and a couple of pints – one of which was free because of our Scottish accents.

It was a wonderful break and I would recommend San Francisco to anyone visiting America. There are many other places here I would love to visit – Nashville, New Orleans, and Boston are top of my ‘bucket list’ – but I’ll never tire of visiting San Fran.