Travel
71 workouts completed in 2012
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napa valley questions
A few of my friends and I are planning a girl's weekend in napa this april. We already booked the hotel, but I was wondering what the best airport would be to fly into. Sacramento and Oakland are about the same price. We're going to be renting a car.
Also, any ideas for less expensive activities? Obviously we'll be going to wineries, but a couple of the girls are on pretty tight budgets, so we'd like to keep the cost down. Any recs for restaurants or specific wineries? TIA!
71 workouts completed in 2012
Re: napa valley questions
It's been a few years since I've been, but we had flown into San Francisco and drove up to Napa after a few days. Now I am having problems remembering where we flew out of. Maybe it was SF? Hmmm...that's going to bother me now.
Anyway, a couple of the wineries we liked when we went were Domaine Chandon (if you like sparkling wine), Cakebread, St. Supery, and Peju. Sterling is great for the view. Frank Family wasn't much to see when we were there (it was in a trailer, I don't know if they were doing construction and that was just temporary?), but the wine was great. I wasn't that impressed with V. Sattui, but it seemed to be a popular one (I think because they sell food there and many of the wineries didn't when we went).
Loved Peju.
We flew into SF and out of San Jose. Before leaving out of SJ, we did a tour of the Winchester mansion - it was a very cool historical site and definitely worth a stop if you choose to fly out of SJ.
Go for Oakland.
We did a very budget-friendly Napa trip a few years ago. We ate at Mustard's (amazing food and you can BYOB wine) and planned our trip around mostly free or very cheap wine tastings (we've done so many we didn't need the full tours). For lunch one day we just grabbed sandwiches from Oakville Grocery and one night we had pizza at a restaurant in Calistoga, which was our favorite town.
To save money, just plan to alternative high and low cost dining, try to go for free/cheaper tastings (you can also share tastings at more expensive places), splurge on lunch rather than dinner, and bring your own wine to dinner when you can.
I hope somebody chimes in with what it's like to fly into Sacramento, because I've heard it's similar to Oakland as far as driving time but since it's a small airport it's less of a pain. Oakland is good, though. No messing around with getting over the Bay and it's a straight shot south. Also, I'm guessing you're flying Southwest, which is great for Napa because then you can check your wine without paying an extra fee.
I've got 4 Napa/Sonoma entries in my blog. Probably my favorite free thing we've ever done is this hiking trail. It had pretty views and was a nice way to get outside. Downtown Napa is cute for wandering around, and there's an outlet mall south of town.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
My Travel Blog
I went for my mom's 50th last fall. We flew into San Francisco. I would guess Sacramento would have less traffic than Oalkand but that's just a guess.
If you're trying to keep the budget down, I'd look into wineries that have buy 1 tasting, get 1 free. We found a ton of them at hotels we stayed at. I liked the Silverado Trail a lot more than the main highway thorugh Napa. My favorites were the Andredi (very Italian feeling) and Alderbrook in Sonoma.
If you're looking for things other that wine tasting, there's the hot springs in Calistoga. We stayed at a hotel that had free access to them but I like you about pay ~$10 for access to them.
~2012 Races~
American Birkenbeiner - 50K Ski 3:19:00
Davenport St. Patrick's Day Fun Run - 5K 21:58
UIVA Warrior Challenge - 5K 22:06
Iowa City River Run - 10K 44:37 PR!
Green Bay Marathon 5/20/12
we flew in/out of SF. it's not too far of a drive.
fave wineries: Peju, Hopper Creek (love love love their zin, very laid back, beautiful views off the back patio)
Steltzner was pretty good, too. Cuvaison is south of town - good wines, fantastic view.
we weren't impressed with William Hill - pretty views but wine was not worth the trip.
have fun!
Ate at Bottega last night (doing French Laundry tonight... SO EXCITED!), and I would echo this sentiment entirely. Delicious food. For us to have appetizers, entrees, glasses of wine, and dessert, it came to $180 for two with tax and tip, but you could do that for less. I really think it's worth the splurge, because food quality for price, it's really quite reasonable. You can find ways to save on food as well (do bakery-style breakfasts, pack along your own sandwiches, etc.) to make it so you can splurge and I would. Make a reservation in advance as they can fill up quickly.
As for which airport to fly into, I have never heard of anyone flying into Sacramento to go to Napa. I could imagine that traffic would be worse than either SF or Oakland. If you fly into SF, the problem can be the occasional fog that shuts the airport down / slows it severely, so you can see some crazy delays. That being said, I live in SF and it took me and H 1:20 to get up to Yountville (9 miles past Napa) yesterday afternoon because we went mid-day. Left around 1:00 PM on a Friday. If you were coming at an off-time, either airport will be fine; if you're flying in for a Friday afternoon drive, you're going to be miserable whether it is SF, Oakland, or Sacramento, but I'd say Oakland is the best. HTH.
I'm glad you both had good experiences at Bottega, but wish ours went as well. We ate there in August and hated the whole experience. From the flies everywhere to the service we received to the overly salty food, we will never go back. The table next to us had really good service, but that still wouldn't have helped with the flies or food. We were so looking forward to it, too.
Hurley's (right across the street) is our favorite restaurant in Yountville (haven't been to French Laundry yet) and is much better priced than some.
Clos Pegase has a really fun tour also, and I don't remember it being very expensive.