Review of California Road-trip - Long

First let me say that we were planning on staying in Big Sur for 2 nights, but as it was burning with wild fires and the area was eventually evacuated, we changed our plans and booked one night in Sausalito and added a night to our stay in Santa Barbara.

We flew into San Fran on July 3rd. We stayed at the Prescott Hotel on Union Square and I would highly recommend it. It is a Kimpton hotel and I love their boutique-style properties. We stayed 2 nights in San Fran, walked the city, saw everything you are supposed to see and, personally, I liked Chinatown and the tall ships the best. Fisherman's Wharf was fun, but a bit stinky The weather was VERY cool and foggy so on July 4 we didn’t bother staying down at Fisherman’s Wharf to see the fireworks. We did go to a really fun Irish bar/restaurant near Union Square called Johnny Foley’s and had a great dinner and a good laugh at the bar afterwards.

We then headed to Napa for one night. DH is not into wine at all, but as the trip was to celebrate by 40th a few months ago, I made that one of the stops for me to enjoy. We stayed a the Marriott in Napa and it was perfect. Most hotels and B&Bs have a 2 night min. so this worked out for us. I had never been to Napa before, but the town of Napa itself is as the very start of the valley and there are many other towns and wineries as you go further up. We only went to two wineries – Artesa and Domaine Carneros by Tattigner (a champagne winery). I did the tasting at Artesa and we bought a few bottles (it is a good idea to have the wine shipped to your home, as you cannot bring it on a flight with the new security regulations). At the champagne winery you can purchase by the glass, which was nice and I had a really good blush champagne. We went to downtown Napa for dinner and ate at a cute, non-touristy Mexican where the food was excellent. I was so surprised that at 8 on a Saturday night the whole town was dead. Maybe everyone drank too much wine during the afternoon!

On to Muir Woods first thing the next morning. This was the alternative to our stay at Big Sur. We hiked the woods for 4 hours and loved it! Highly recommend visiting if you are in San Fran. We then went to our hotel in Sausalito – the Casa Madrona – it has an old and new part and I would advise requesting rooms in the new wing. Everyone raves about Sausalito and while it is very pretty, it was also very quiet. It was busy enough during the day but once we ate dinner we couldn’t find any where else to hang out except Starbucks. We did walk around the town, but there’s only so much walking you can do!

We left Sausalito very early and headed down Route 1. We were unsure of where we would stay that night, but decided to see how far we could get towards Carmel before the fires forced us inland. DH really wanted to see where Mavericks surfing was and we found it somewhere north of Half Moon Bay. We got there around 9 am and the scenery was amazing! We stopped at some small towns along the way and then Monterey for lunch. Walked lots more and went to the Aquarium. Then back in the car to Carmel. The beach in Carmel was beautiful except the air quality was definitely affected by the fires in Big Sur. On our way to the main street we passed a beautiful inn (The Lamplighter) with vacancies and were able to get the room for $110 less than regular rate. I would do this in future on any road-trips. I think you get a much better deal not booking accommodation in the smaller towns in advance. I’m really glad that we were able to stay in Carmel because that is the point where we had to turn off Route 1 and go to Route 101 from Salinas. Salinas is called “The Salad bowl” and is very industrial where they grow nearly all the greens we eat. Not a very attractive place to see, but interesting...

We were then on to our last stop – Santa Barbara. We visited Hearst Castle on the way down and I would recommend doing the tour. We almost didn’t do it and I’m very glad we did. We checked into the Franciscan Inn in Santa Barbara late in the evening. The Franciscan was nice enough. It got great reviews in everything I read, but I would stay at the Doubletree Resort next time – that looked beautiful. After so many nights of “good living” we were dying to head out and have more than one drink. State Street in Santa Barbara is the main restaurant/shopping area and there are so many great bars and restaurants. DH’s friend used to live there and DH had visited him a lot when he was (much) younger, so he had a good idea where to go. I loved, loved, loved Santa Barbara. We stayed three nights and it was also the most relaxing and fun part of the trip.

We flew out of LAX and saw Ozzie and Sharon Osborne at the airport. We flew Virgin America both ways and they were excellent! I especially liked watching BBC America on the personal TV screens.

Link to pics in album (hope this works)
California July 2008

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

Sounds like a wonderful time!
Great pictures too...thanks for sharing.

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

Thanks for sharing! I would love to do something similar one day!

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

Sounds like you had a great time! This is one of my dream trips!

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

This is what I want to do w/ the kids next summer. How did you go about booking hotels and stuff. Im finding it very overwhelming.

steph

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

I'm leaving tomorrow for this same trip. San Fran, Sonoma and Big Sur!

How bad is it in Big Sur? one of the restaurants we were going to burned down.

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

This brings back memories of my honeymoon Glad you had a great time, it's so fun to just drive all over and see the sights. I can't wait to go back!

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

Posted by Blu-ize

I'm leaving tomorrow for this same trip. San Fran, Sonoma and Big Sur!

How bad is it in Big Sur? one of the restaurants we were going to burned down.

Re: Review of California Road-trip - Long

Sounds wonderful!

Thanks for sharing!