Alcatraz Ticket with Bay Cruise and Hop-On Hop-Off Bus San Francisco

Alcatraz Island and the Cellhouse

Alcatraz rises from the water about two kilometres off the city's northern waterfront. It carried the first lighthouse on the US West Coast in 1854, then a military fort and prison, and from 1934 to 1963 it was the most feared federal penitentiary in the country. Between 1969 and 1971 Native American activists occupied the island, and their painted messages still mark the water tower. Since 1972 it has been part of a national park.

The ferry from Pier 33 takes about 15 minutes. A steep path climbs to the Cellhouse, where the audio tour, told by former officers and inmates, leads you along the cell blocks, the dining hall and the isolation cells in about 45 minutes. Allow two and a half to three hours on the island. Alcatraz tickets sell out weeks ahead in summer, which makes this package a practical way to secure them.

San Francisco Bay cruise

Your pass includes a separate 60-minute San Francisco Bay cruise from the Fisherman's Wharf waterfront. The boat usually heads west along the shoreline and out beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, where the swell of the Pacific can be felt, before looping back around the rocky shore of Alcatraz, giving you the views of the island that you cannot get while standing on it.

Recorded commentary explains the history of the port, the bridges and the islands as you pass Angel Island, Sausalito on the northern shore and the hills of the city. Take a warm layer, as the wind on the water is cold even on sunny days. The cruise is a perfect choice for the day you do not visit Alcatraz, or as a relaxed hour after a morning on the bus.

Golden Gate Bridge on the open-top bus

Opened in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge stretches about 2.7 kilometres across the strait between the city and Marin County, with towers rising some 227 metres above the water. Its famous colour, called International Orange, was chosen so the bridge would stand out in the fog that often rolls in from the Pacific in summer afternoons.

On this pass you cross the bridge on the open top deck of a double-decker bus, one of the most memorable ways to experience it, with the wind in your face and the city behind you. Hop off at the bridge stop to walk part of the pedestrian path or to photograph the towers from the viewpoints. Morning often brings the clearest views, while fog creates a dramatic scene later in the day.

Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39

Fisherman's Wharf is the lively waterfront where many bus routes start and where the Alcatraz ferries and bay cruises leave from nearby piers. Once a working fishing harbour, it is now lined with seafood stalls selling steaming crab and clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls, shops and street performers.

At Pier 39, hundreds of California sea lions have gathered on the floating docks since soon after the 1989 earthquake, barking and basking in full view of visitors; they are most numerous in winter. The bus also stops at Pier 35 and close to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, whose 1898 clock tower overlooks a busy food marketplace, ideal for lunch between rides.

Chinatown, North Beach and Union Square

San Francisco's Chinatown, founded in the mid-19th century, is the oldest in North America. Enter through the Dragon Gate on Grant Avenue and wander among lantern-strung streets, temples, tea shops and bakeries; the digital walking tour included in your pass guides you on foot through its alleys and stories at your own pace.

Next door, North Beach is the city's old Italian quarter, with cafés, bakeries and the white tower on Telegraph Hill above it. A few stops away, Union Square is the shopping heart of downtown, where the cable cars clang up Powell Street. The Embarcadero Center and Civic Center, with its domed City Hall, are also on the route, making the bus an easy way to link these neighbourhoods.

Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury and Lombard Street

West of downtown, the bus visits Alamo Square, where a row of colourful Victorian houses faces the skyline, and Haight Ashbury, famous for the music and counterculture of the 1960s. Golden Gate Park, larger than New York's Central Park, holds museums, lakes and the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, opened in 1894.

On the northern loop you pass the Palace of Fine Arts, a domed rotunda and lagoon built for the 1915 world exposition, the Marina district and Lombard Street, whose single block of tight hairpin bends lined with flowers is a classic photo stop. The panoramic sunset tour, a separate evening departure, then shows these hills and streets as the lights come on.