Napa Valley Trip
Monday, September 24th, 2007 | Noteworthy and Travel
Tags: food, healdsburg, hearst castle, napa, photography, santa rosa, sonoma
I apologize to my readers for my unannounced absence of last week. My friends and I took a 3-day trip to North California, more precisely Santa Rosa and Napa. We visited many places and did a lot of sightseeing. Overall, the trip was fantastic, and the places we visited are very peaceful and relaxing. I enjoyed the trip very much. Now, I would like to share with you some photos, and highlights of my trip.
We departed from San Diego on Sunday afternoon, after 10 hours of driving we arrived at our hotel close to midnight. The Doubletree hotel we booked was very nice, clean and spacious. Next morning, we had a wonderful breakfast at Costeaux French Bakery.
I highly recommend this place. If you ever go to North California and are nearby Healdsburg, make sure you pay a visit to family owned and operated Costeaux. Not just the food was delicious and visually pleasant, the servers were extremely friendly and kind. Even the chefs in the kitchen were nice, the chefs granted us access to the kitchen, so we entered the kitchen to see how they prepared the food and took some photos. At the end of meal, we intended to buy some bread, and they insisted on giving them to us for free. This place is definitely a gem!
On the same day, we also visited wineries and did a lot of wine tasting, and we finished the day by visiting the quiet Sonoma Lake.
Next day, we visited Redwood National and State Park, did some hiking. Then, we visited the renowned Korbel Winery and I learned a lot about the history of the winery and champagne. A word about Redwood Park, hiking among the woods is a completely different experience than my previous hiking in Yosemite. When you are in the woods, you are surrounded by the silence of the forest, and inside the forest the temperature is cool, since most of sunlight is blocked. Although, you are hiking and exercising, but your spiritual state feels so at peace and relaxed.
On the last day, on the way back home, we stopped at the Hearst Castle for a tour.
I hope you enjoyed my lengthy sharing and the photos!
September 25, 2007
8:48 am on Tuesday
It sounds like you had a lot of fun!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to taste any wine when I went there a few years ago — what’s up with that 21-year old limit? ;)
September 25, 2007
11:44 am on Tuesday
That’s too bad! Hopefully you can go there again soon, so you will be able to taste as much wine as you want!
September 25, 2007
2:57 pm on Tuesday
Luckily I can already do that in Italy. That said, I’d love to go back to the Bay Area, so that I’d able to visit Napa again, too. :)
September 25, 2007
3:39 pm on Tuesday
I would like to visit Italy. There should have a lot of good wine, right? Besides, I love Italian food and history. I hope one day this dream will be true.
September 28, 2007
8:40 am on Friday
That looks like a fun little trip!!
October 12, 2007
2:51 pm on Friday
nice recap of the trip…
i had a lot of fun too.
hope we can all go on a trip again soon~