Best Vacation Blog

The best vacation that I have been on was the trip that my wife and I took to Napa Valley, California as part of our 10 year wedding anniversary in June of 2010. After flying out to San Diego and seeing family, we drove up the coast thru Santa Barbra and San Francisco stopping at a couple wineries along the way. In San Francisco we spent a couple day seeing sights, including a sunset cruise on the bay under the Golden Gate Bridge. After that we spent 4 days in Calistoga, California, which is near the North end of Napa Valley.

The highlight of the trip was the time in Napa Valley. We spent the time in a resort that featured a warm natural spring pool and spa, and toured the north end of the valley by bicycle. The bicycle tour was a self-guided trip that went from winery to winery. The company that rented the cycles and coordinated the trip also arranged all the tasting fees, and drove a van around at the end of the day to pick up any purchases, all as part of the package. We stopped at 10 wineries over the course of about 6 hours, but because it was short hops between vineyards and fairly flat, it wasn’t hard riding and made for a relaxing day. The extra bonus of having someone pick up our purchases at the end of the day was great, because we bought enough that it would have been impossible to carry on the bikes. By the end of the 4 days we ended up with 4 cases of wine, mainly from Firestone Vineyards, V Sattii Winery,  Vincent Arroyo Winery, and a handful from a few of the others.

After Napa Valley we returned to San Francisco for a couple more days of sightseeing, including a tour of Alcatraz Island and a sunset sail on the Bay. The Alcatraz tour was interesting, but it was a lot of walking. The sunset sail on the bay was a bust, the weather didn’t cooperate. We also rode bikes across the Golden Gate bridge before flying home.