We stopped for breakfast at the Big
Sur River Inn Restaurant and then drove to some of the small shops along
Big Sur before leaving the area. We have always enjoyed this laid back communityWe
will be going to Napa today. We went back down to the beach one more time
before starting to drive north.
We left Big Sur around 11:00 and went inland this time before reaching Santa Cruz as we wanted to go to Gilroy where they hold the Garlic Festival every year in late July. We have been here once for the festival and have never seen anything like it before. Tens of thousands of people come here for a weekend to try all kinds of foods made out of Garlic. It's a must at least once for anybody who likes garlic, but plan ahead of time as I'm sure there is no place to stay if you just drive in for the day. It's pretty quiet this morning. I bought some pickled garlic and we then left going north to Napa.
We reached Napa at
about 3:00 as we were held up by traffic in San Jose. At the Highway 12 and
29 intersection we stoppedoff at the new Hakusan
Sake Gardens where they make sake wine with California rice. They have
a self-guided tour and tastings. We continued north on Highway 29. Our next
stop was the V. Sattui Winery in St.
Helena, where we ordered a case of wine to ship home as this is where
we buy all of our wine. We have been coming here since the late 80's and they
have the best Maderia,
Muscat and
Gamay wines
around. They also have a great place to picnic on the grounds as they sell
meats and cheeses to eat there with their wine. We had a picnic here and then
went to some of the other wineries. Today we stopped at Sutter
Home, Beringer, and Freemark
Abbey.
After touring the wineries, we drove to Calistoga
and walked thru the shops in town. This is a nice little town that has spas/mud
baths, calistoga
water, glider flights and much more to do . It reminds me of a bohemian
setting with a european attitiude. It tries to portray good health and relaxation
but it is right in the middle of Napa and wine country. We like the town and
usually come to just see what we can do new around the town on any given day.
Today we went to the Calistoga Inn to have dinner, we enjoy the atmosphere
as it is an older building with a piano in the entrance way. The bar has a
TV for watching sportng events as we order dinner. The picture to your left
is of the Calistoga City Hall. We assume that somebody broke a window to the
building and they replaced it with a band-aid.
We took some back roads that night, driving north of Calistoga in a nice area
that has trees overgrown over the road. It had been over 80 degrees during
the daytime, so it was nice driving these country roads with the convertible
top down around 9:00 at night.. We stayed in the Napa Valley Railway Inn in
Yountville. Our hotel room is an
old caboose that has been totally refurbinished. It was a nice place to stay
for a night as it was different.
We drove 400 miles today. 1300 total