Vacation in California

Paul and I had the most wonderful vacation in San Fransisco and the wine country. This was a trip that we have wanted to take for a long time and were so excited we finally got to go! San Fransisco was really neat, totally steep, crazy cabbies driving seriously crazy, tons of shopping, lots of wind and lots of things to do, eat and see and lots of really wonderful scenery! We did go to Alcatraz (ironically the movie 'The Rock' is on tv right now as I type this!!), it was very interesting and really neat to see. We also took in Union Square, the Embarcadero, Ghirardelli Square, Pier 39 and many other wonderful things. We stayed in the Nob Hill district, in an old upscale hotel, right at the top of the hill. The food around town was fabulous....and expensive, but did I say it was fabulous. The best place we ate at was a little asian fusion place in the Ferry Building, named The Slanted Door. We are still talking about the food there, it was that good. We rented a car and checked out of the hotel on Saturday, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and headed to the wine country. We stayed at a great little Bed & Breakfast in a small town called Healdsburg, in northern Sonoma. We really enjoyed the atmosphere and location there, everything was very easy to navigate, all of the wineries we wanted to visit were not hard to find and there are some really fabulous wineries there. The countryside was really remarkable and it was so neat to see vineyards EVERYWHERE. It seems like every road we turned on we were stopping to take pictures of some really neat vines. We did drive through Napa as well, on Monday, on our way back to San Fransisco and it was really nice. We went out of the way to go there, just to see my favorite vineyard, V. Sattuui, it's a direct to consumer vineyard, which means they do not sell their product outside of their property. It's my favorite and since this was my "big" birthday trip, I could justify the out of the way venture...plus it was nice to see Napa. I think when we go back, we may go through Napa again and see a little bit more, but I definitely think we will be back in Healsdburg and northern Sonoma. It is a really wonderful area with some high class wineries and it's much easier to get around than Napa and it's also so much more laid back. We truly loved it and recommend it to anyone!

Here are just a few of my favorite pics....

We stopped at Vista Point on our way to the wine country and took a few pics of the bridge.

Alcatraz Island

This is one of my favorite pictures, I just think it is so neat to see such a remarkable old vine.

This is just one of the many pictures we took of the vineyards that are everywhere. You can truly stop at any point on the street and see something like this, it was really neat to see, I can only imagine what they will look like when they are in full bloom.

We took this picture in front of one our favorte winery's, J. They make one of the best champagnes I have ever had. it's kind of special to us because we shared this at our wedding.

I took this picture on our way in to Napa....this sign was the mothership calling me home!! Just kidding, but I thought it was cool!

Castello di Amorosa....it's the only castle in Napa and it's really quite remarkable. It's completely authentic to early European castles and all of the materials used to build it, decorate it, etc. have been recycled from castles and old refuge from Europe and Britain. There is a fireplace in the great room that predates Christopher Columbus! We stopped by to check the castle out because it is the sister winery of my favorite vineyard, v. Sattuii.

V. Sattuii

Stay tuned....I have some new posts coming from Spring Break and Stephen's "Special Week" at school!