Victorian Woodshop Napa Wine County Walking Tour

VICTORIAN WOODSHOP PICTURES - Walking Tours

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Napa - Sonoma Wine Country
Sept 5th 2009 - My daughter and I took a trip through the Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino coast and wine country this week and I took a few picture and wanted to share them. Beautiful area and am breaking the pictures up into two postings. This section is the wine country from Napa to about Calistoga. I am not much of a wine guy, but it certainly is a beautiful area. Very touristy. The area is a short couple hour drive from down town San Francisco and the area is basically their hang out. An illusion of what small towns and rural countryside really is. Block after block of stores you would never see in a real small town. Think Disneyland for wine guys.

Wine country photos from Napa to Calistoga

The Culinary Institute (quite a place overlooking fields of vines)

The fields are extensive and traverse a good hundred miles on both sides of the winding two lane road. The Winery signs are endless from large to small family owned operations and all welcome visitors. The vineyard owners seem to know this is a special place and there are hardly any fences at all, allowing you to pull off the road and walk right up to the fields. Contrast this with the towns which are nothing more than places designed to separate San Francisco tourists from their money. Store after store of overpriced shiny things that no small town would have . A shame really, all sense of what the towns were is nowhere to be found. I took the following picture as an example of what you find on the sidewalk as well as an interior shot of one of the many wine shops. In my opinion, if you enjoy stuffy places, spend time in the towns, if you are into the wine itself and production, stay in the countryside.

Maybe it is just me, but I refuse to spend $50 bucks for lunch and was told about the "World Famous" BBQ place The Shack (written up in the local hoity toity food magazines) What the heck - so my daughter and I pulled into it. I made the mistake of asking for a hamburger and a snotty waitress looked down her nose at me and said "we don't have that kind of thing around here." $10 bucks for a piece of meat on a cold bun with canned potato salad on a paper plate. Here is a picture of the place. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough to get it.

Very few examples of Victorian architecture but I did grab a couple

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UPDATE : - Dec 29th 2009 - I had a chance to travel back through the same area this week and took a couple of pictures of the same wine fields dormant and thought it would be a nice contrast to show the cycle. The fields and landscape are just as beautiful....but in a different way in the winter. The following pictures were taken outside of Sonoma Ca.

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Victorian Napa Wine Country Walking Tour

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