Friday, October 29, 2010

Wine, Rain and Redwoods

Our friends got married in Sonoma, California last weekend and we flew out to help celebrate their big day.  Sonoma is a cute, small town about an hour outside of San Francisco.  It’s full of great restaurants, shops and places to taste the local wine - all within walking distance of our hotel.  When we arrived Friday afternoon, one of our first stops was Roche Winery’s tasting room just off the square.  About three weeks ago we were on a train in Italy and met Donna who works at Roche Winery.  Talk about a small world!  Of course we had to stop and although we didn’t see Donna, we did end up buying three bottles of wine.  We also went to a few more shops to try the wine, bought some trinkets (like the Gin and Titonic Ice Cube Tray) and a new winter hat from the Baksheesh Fair Trade store.  Sonoma is also about an hour drive from Muir Woods and on Saturday morning we hiked through the redwood forest while the canopy kept us dry.

The actual wedding was at a Cline Cellars Winery and due to rain, the ceremony and reception were held in the barrel rooms.  The location provided such an intimate and unique experience. We had a great time dancing the night away and toasting the happy couple!

On our last day out west we were once again faced with rain and after driving back to San Francisco to drop the rental car off, we had 9 hours to fill before heading to the airport to catch the red eye flight home.   What to do?  Well we managed to:
  • Walk around Fisherman’s Warf
  • Have crab chowder and fish & garlic chips
  • Visit the aquarium
  • See a movie to get warm and dry off
  • Do some window shopping
  • Walk to Chinatown for dinner
  • Walk back to Union Square
  • Have a few drinks at the hotel bar where our bags were stashed
  • Finally go to the airport to find out our flight was delayed two hours
Needless to say, California wore us out, but we still had a great time!

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