Everybody's doing the Hitchcock Walk, that is if you're in London and looking for a cool new tour
The flyer for the Hitchcock walking tour available for your ambulatory and intellectual pleasure three days a week, all year round.
If you happen to be London-way this summer, here's something new on the street. There is a similar tour in San Francisco, the Vertigo tour. This is a full day tour in the city with option of a trip down to San Juan Bautista. For a group of 7, the tour costs $300, or $660 for the tour plus San Juan Bautista add-on. This is from their program:
Our "Vertigo" Itinerary
Locales from Hitchcock's "Vertigo" can be experienced as a full (10-hour) day wherein we spend the morning focused on the charmingly unafffected town of San Juan Bautista, site of the essential tower scenes. Then back in the City we visit all the extant sites which provide the frame for most of the film. If you don't have time for the full-day tour, we can cover "Vertigo"'s San Francisco sites in about 4 hours.
[Full-day Itinerary] The tour begins with a scenic drive via Silicon Valley to the part Old Mexico, part Old West town of San Juan Bautista. You'll have ninety minutes or so to explore the well-preserved and still-active mission church (site of two "accidental" sudden deaths), its large traditional garden, the livery stable (replete with carriages and other rare conveyances) where Madeleine falls into a trance, and numerous rich and evocative souvenirs of our colonial and frontier heritages. You may pick up a snack to enjoy while exploring the town's many antique shops—before we head up to San Francisco for lunch.
The second half of the day begins with a visit to the historic Mission Dolores and its 220-year-old cemetery, as did Madeleine in search of...her past. We stop at several places that detective "Scottie" Ferguson and Judy—an object of his obsession—would have found familiar: the grand Palace of the Legion of Honor (art museum), Fort Point under theGolden Gate Bridge, the other-worldly Palace of Fine Arts, the "Crookedest Street in the World," and elite Nob Hill. Sometimes we bring our enchanted day to a climax with a breath-taking ride in the St. Francis' glass elevator or up to the summit of Twin Peaks—to test your vertigo.
Our "Vertigo" Itinerary
Locales from Hitchcock's "Vertigo" can be experienced as a full (10-hour) day wherein we spend the morning focused on the charmingly unafffected town of San Juan Bautista, site of the essential tower scenes. Then back in the City we visit all the extant sites which provide the frame for most of the film. If you don't have time for the full-day tour, we can cover "Vertigo"'s San Francisco sites in about 4 hours.
[Full-day Itinerary] The tour begins with a scenic drive via Silicon Valley to the part Old Mexico, part Old West town of San Juan Bautista. You'll have ninety minutes or so to explore the well-preserved and still-active mission church (site of two "accidental" sudden deaths), its large traditional garden, the livery stable (replete with carriages and other rare conveyances) where Madeleine falls into a trance, and numerous rich and evocative souvenirs of our colonial and frontier heritages. You may pick up a snack to enjoy while exploring the town's many antique shops—before we head up to San Francisco for lunch.
The second half of the day begins with a visit to the historic Mission Dolores and its 220-year-old cemetery, as did Madeleine in search of...her past. We stop at several places that detective "Scottie" Ferguson and Judy—an object of his obsession—would have found familiar: the grand Palace of the Legion of Honor (art museum), Fort Point under theGolden Gate Bridge, the other-worldly Palace of Fine Arts, the "Crookedest Street in the World," and elite Nob Hill. Sometimes we bring our enchanted day to a climax with a breath-taking ride in the St. Francis' glass elevator or up to the summit of Twin Peaks—to test your vertigo.
And, should you fancy doing all of this on your own, with a just a Baedeker to guide you, then required reading is Footsteps in the Fog By Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal. Kraft and Leventhal cover all of the films Hitchcock shot in the Bay area, with address etc so that you can easily assemble your own tour. The website, linked above, also provides a few addresses and maps for free. For example, I learned that the train station used for the opening for Marnie, was not shot on the East Coast, but in San Jose at the Diridon train station.
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| The train station in Hitchcock's Marnie. |
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| The train station today. |
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