Our first stop was Roche Wineries, where we sampled about a dozen wines. Next was Cline Cellars, which had a beautiful garden – we spent more time outside than inside sampling the wines. Finally, we stopped at Viansa, which was designed to look like an Italian winery. It also sold delicious breads and dips, some [...]
Archive for the ‘California’ Category
Wineries, CA
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on June 28, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Sonoma, CA
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Our van tour stopped in the town of Sonoma for lunch, and it nearly rivaled Samovar for “Best Lunch.” To our delight, there were bins of gourmet cheeses to sample and very good deli sandwiches available for purchase. We also poked around a historic mission and walked around the shopping area, picking up a few [...]
Muir Woods, CA
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
If you’re going to visit multiple wineries, a van tour makes it easy – someone else does all the driving, and all you have to do is drink. Our tour guide was reasonably priced and toured Sonoma Valley wineries rather than Napa Valley, which we had heard were more pretentious and not as friendly to [...]
San Francisco, CA – Exploring
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on May 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
We found our “Best Breakfast” of the trip at Mama’s on Washington Square. Even in the middle of the week, there was a line out the door for a table. Jen fondly remembers the banana pancakes (her 2nd best breakfast ever) and Paul had his juevos rancheros. Over the course of this day and our [...]
Yosemite National Park, CA
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California, Yosemite on May 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
We only got to make a few photo stops at Yosemite, but it was a lovely park – even our tour guide couldn’t ruin the experience totally. We also visited a grove of giant sequoias. At the time, we still harbored the illusion that we were relatively fit people. We had a hard time with [...]
Sierra Nevada Foothills, CA
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on May 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
We passed through the Sierra Nevada foothills on the way to Yosemite National Park with Extranomical Adventures. This wasn’t our favorite van trip of this vacation – we really disliked our tour guide, who drove like a maniac and rushed us through every stop on the trip.
San Francisco, CA – Alcatraz Island
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on May 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Alcatraz Island was very cool. Like the Maid of the Mist boat ride at Niagara Falls, it’s the quintessential touristy thing to do, but very much worth it. When we arrived, there was still enough daylight (and enough of a crowd) to make it seem a little dull. But by the time we left, when [...]
San Francisco, CA – Fishermans Wharf
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on May 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
We did the normal tourist activities at Fisherman’s Wharf – we visited the Aquarium of the Bay, saw the sea lions (they smell), walked around the shops, and had an incredibly overpriced (and rare!) dinner of French dip sandwiches at a nearby restaurant. We also had to buy sweatshirts as we waited for the last [...]
San Francisco, CA – Yerba Buena Gardens
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on May 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Our first day in San Francisco was a really good one. We had the silver dollar pancakes at Sears Fine Foods (one of two great breakfast places) and wandered around the Yerba Buena Gardens for awhile as we waited for the SFMOMA to open. We didn’t wait in the very long line to see the [...]
VACATION 3 – San Francisco, CA
Posted in 2007 San Francisco, California on May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
About one year passed, and we decided to visit San Francisco, CA. Paul was really looking forward to exploring the city itself, while Jen was much more excited about visiting Yosemite National Park and the giant sequoias. When we arrived, we took the BART into the city and stayed at the Powell Hotel right by [...]
