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I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s post with photos from last week’s trip to Pebble Beach and Carmel-by-the-Sea. Today I am sharing more pics from our trip to San Francisco, Sonoma, and Napa Valley.  On Tuesday we drove to the city (which is only 40 minutes from our house in Los Altos) and I attempted to show my mom and sister the most popular sights in San Francisco. Chris is usually the tour guide for this trip but since he was working in Chicago for the week it was up to me to navigate around the city.  San Francisco isn’t that big but I seemed to get us lost 1 too many times, ha! We started the tour by AT&T Park and the Ferry Buildings.  Then we headed Nob Hill and Union Square. Next we drove to Alamo Square to see the painted ladies, we hit Lombard Street where I dropped the girls off to take pictures and then I had them ride a trolley car down to the wharf where I picked them up.  The tour took longer than I hoped but in the end we ended up seeing a lot of the city (from driving around and around).

After the trolley cars and the wharf we headed over the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was sunny in the city but unfortunately the fog and the wind at the bridge was in full effect.  Driving over the bridge and stopping at the vista point is one of my favorite things to do with visitors because the view of the city is so pretty and the bridge is magical.

There is a little town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge called Sausalito, you might remember Matt and I working there a few weeks ago.  It is just a few miles from the bridge and lucky for us the sun was shining and the fog was no where to be found.  We walked through the shops and had lunch at Spinnakers, one of my favorite restaurants.

After lunch we drove to Sonoma stopping at a few hot spots on the way.  I love this giant chair at Cornerstone winery and shops.

Then we checked into our hotel and had a snack and some wine next to the pool.  It was so relaxing, I wish we could have stayed a few extra days.

The farmers market going on downtown Sonoma so we took the hotel shuttle into the historic square.   I couldn’t believe how many people there were out and about.  All of the booths had great products like flowers, produce, speciality foods, art, and jewelry.

Once the market wrapped up we window shopped so we could create a game plan for the next day and then we headed back to our cottage to watch the Olympics (which I CANNOT get enough of)!

In the morning we grabbed coffee at the bean and bottle at the hotel and we hit the hot tub, what a  treat!  I wish we could have stayed longer so we could enjoy the beautiful pool but we had too much to see.  Next time!

Our cottage…

We shopped in Sonoma and then had lunch at the El Dorado Hotel.  They had a great outdoor patio and the best truffle fries (the best $7 you will ever spend).

After lunch we headed over to Napa Valley to see the cute towns like Yountville, St. Helena, and Calistoga.  We stopped at a local winery, a soap shop, and a champagne tasting room.

My mom and sister didn’t think they liked Champagne until they visited Mumm!  I am glad they were willing to give it a try.

After our tour of wine country we stopped at the famous Napa Valley sign to snap some shots.  We used the self timer on the camera (propped up on the cooler in the back of my car) to take the group shots, pretty handy.

We stopped at In-N-Out Burger on the way home and I wish I would have taken some pictures but we dove into our food too fast.  Ashlie loved the burgers and couldn’t believe how cute it was. The guy at the counter gave us cute hats to give Ashlie’s twin girls, they loved them!

I hope you enjoyed our over night trip to Napa.  Tomorrow I will be back with a spicy salad for my summer salad series and a few more pictures from my mom and sister’s last days in California.