Our last three days in California were spent in Sausalito, Sonoma and San Francisco. We left Pebble Beach on Wednesday afternoon and headed to Sausalito. Sausalito is a little town just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. It was so cute! We stayed at Casa Madrona which was right on the main road and had a view of the bay.
The entrance to our hotel- Matt really wants to have a room in our house look like this.
The view from our hotel room:
A view of San Francisco from Sausalito:
That night we enjoyed walking around Sausalito (all the stores close at 6) and grabbed some sushi for dinner. The best part of our time in Sausalito was Thursday morning. We woke up and ran the Golden Gate Bridge (about 3.5 miles). It was so much fun and such a great thing to do. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and relaxed in the steam room at the spa. Then we headed up to Sonoma for the afternoon (about a 45 min drive).
A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the vista where we parked our car and started our run:
After we finished running!
We weren't quite sure what we wanted to do in Sonoma besides go to one winery. The 36 Hour book highly recommended going to downtown Sonoma and walking around the square- so that is what we did! We had a great lunch at Sunflower Cafe. They had a great outdoor shaded patio which was nice because it was hot! We walked around downtown and went in lots of little shops. We asked one of the shop owners what winery we should go to and she recommended Sebastiani, which was a 5 minute drive away. We went there, each did a tasting series and ended up buying a bottle of Chardonnay. I am not a big Chardonnay fan, but it was great! We figured we could drink it over the next two nights in San Francisco...and that is exactly what we did! After the winery, we headed south to San Francisco!
Lunch on the patio at Sunflower Cafe.
Matt taking a post lunch "sit" in the square after lunch
Smelling the roses..haha
We got to San Francisco around 4:00 and had to return our rental car to the airport...bye bye Spyder! We weren't sad to see it go! We checked into our hotel in Union Square. It was a great location! We put our wine on ice and headed out to dinner at 6. We went to a great place for happy hour (it was highly recommended on yelp) and then headed home to have a glass of wine. We were exhausted!
Thursday morning we experienced the cable cars. They were pretty neat! We had fun riding them. Matt and I got a great spot, hanging on to the outside pole seeing everything! We went to fisherman's wharf first and walked around. It was pretty touristy...reminded us of Myrtle Beach or Pigeon Forge with the trinket stores and such. It really wasn't our scene- we like smaller places. We went to Ghirardelli Square and hiked up to see Lombard Street (the crazy street that loops back and forth). After a quick lunch at In and Out Burger (you have to try it right?), we headed to the pier to catch a boat to Alcatraz. Alcatraz was awesome and kinda crazy! They have a free headset tour thing that was really helpful. The best part of the day by far was dinner! We had the BEST sushi (recommended by yelp!). It was a great day!
Us on the cable car!
Lombard Street
Alcatraz- San Fran in the background
When we woke up on Friday, we were EXHAUSTED! We were so lazy! We checked out (we flew the red eye home that night) and headed to lunch at Boudin Bakery for a real sour dough sandwich. YUMMY! Then we pretty much spent the day shopping in Union Square. Matt got a new wallet from Cole Haan that is orange leather on the inside..had to buy it!
Friday night we had dinner with Abby and Eric. Matt went to grad school with Abby. So here is the funny thing... Abby and Eric got married the first weekend of our trip in Mississippi. We couldn't go to their wedding since we had planned this trip to Cali. Ironically, they honeymooned in Napa and were spending their last weekend in San Francisco...so we had dinner with the newlyweds! It was great!!! We went to Woodhouse Fish Company (yelp said it had the best lobster roll). The lobster roll was amazing but the clam chowder and lobster bisque were the best! This restaurant was in Lower Pacific Heights, which is such a cute area. Matt and I wished we had spent more time there. The main street had such cute shops and restaurants. Then we headed to the airport to come home.
Our trip to California was AMAZING! I am so glad that we went and that we drove from San Diego to San Francisco. Our favorite places were the small towns we visited along the way. I think small towns are more our scene than big cities-no suprise there. I highly recommend this trip! Next trip- Gulf Shores with Matt's family for the 4th of July!! I have to say, we are really excited to stay home for awhile and enjoy Knoxville!
xoxo
Fran
Sounds like the trip of a lifetime!!!
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