The second to last day of our trip we drove out to Napa Valley and Sonoma. These two towns have a little rivalry over their wines, but from what I understand, they aren't all that similar.
We decided just to drive through Napa Valley in the morning. We found a driving tour route to follow online--try this one if you go. You pretty much get a good idea of Napa just by driving up and down this one road, Highway 29. We stopped in downtown Yountsville, and drove past many famous wineries, such as Beringer and Robert Mondavi. I'd never seen so many grapes! The way the valley is shaped offers a great view--looking up on both sides of the road you can see oceans of vineyards.
We didn't feel like stopping in Napa--it's very showy, tastings are expensive, and we were a little put off by all the vineyards whose wine we could just buy in our local grocery store (although I should note that we found out later that those wineries always make sure to carry releases of wines not available in grocery stores). So we drove on to Sonoma, where we visited several vineyards. The vineyards here seemed more smaller, more family-like, and much more down-to-earth.
Since we know some Larsons, we stopped at the Larson Family Winery (no relation to our friends). Tasting there was only five dollars (waived if you buy a bottle). Derek thought their gold medal chardonnay was very interesting, and I really appreciated how patient the staff at the tasting room was with me.
We also stopped at Sebastiani Vineyard, which was much more of a commercial operation than Larson Family (not that Larson Family wasn't business-like). This was one of the oldest vineyards--they survived Prohibition as one of only ten wineries allowed to stay open, for the purposes of providing wine to churches. Tasting there started at $10, but what was nice was that they let Derek and me share a tasting glass. They had a great tour of the winery, where we saw huge old oak barrels and got a good glimpse of the wine-making process.
We spent some time in downtown Sonoma, which has a very cute square. We ate at Della Santina's, a nice little Italian restaurant, where we celebrated our 2nd "Monthiversary." All in all, Napa/Sonoma Day was a good one.
On the last day of the trip, we went to Muir Woods National
Monument. We saw some gorgeous tall redwoods and took an exhausting hike up "Ocean View Trail" (which, due to the fog, had no ocean view...). It was definitely a site to see. Admission there is $5.
In the afternoon we headed to Point Reyes National Seashore (ate at a great little deli along the way in Olema), which is just on the other side of the San Andreas Fault. The weird thing is that it's really like you're on another continent once you cross the fault line. The landscape totally changed, and so had the vegetation--you get grassy fields and ranches (we saw what we thought were California Happy Cows) instead of the mountains.
The lighthouse was pretty cool (although definitely a work out to get back up the 300+ steps!). Unfortunately, the fog prevented us
from seeing much of the ocean.
That was our trip! Derek and I had a great time in California, and I hope my posts have been educational and informative. Maybe they have even enticed you into visiting some of the beautiful sites in the San Francisco area.
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