Filed under: There and Back Again
Last weekend, Adam & I drove from San Francisco up to Napa Valley, and I must say – it is absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know a thing about grapes or wine, but I fell in love with the entire valley. Adam lived in southern Italy and Sicily for a few years, and he said that Napa reminded him of that part of the world quite a bit. Which wasn’t really surprising, but made me want to go to Italy that much more. There were these terra-cotta colored villa’s dotting each side of the valley, with outbuildings and guest-houses and acres of grapevines. Most of them have their own tourist shops and wine tasting rooms and guided tours, and as we continued up the valley I honestly kind of lost track of what century I was in, or hemisphere. I could probably move to Napa tomorrow (given the appropriate influx of several million dollars) and be a happy girl for the rest of my life. Granted, I’d probably have to learn a bit more about wine, or olives, or something “napa-ish”… but hey, give me a Tuscan-looking villa with acres of land and I’ll learn anything!
I had a particularly horrible case of cramps on Saturday (damn “women’s issues”) and I didn’t really feel like walking around too much. I really wanted to just scoop all of my insides out with an ice-cream scooper and get rid of them. Even after taking a pile of pills I still felt really dizzy and shaky and nauseated. So – Napa wasn’t quite as fab as I would have liked it to be, but we did stop at a few places and wander around a bit. And even though I felt like I was going to die, dying in Napa didn’t seem quite so bad.
NEXT POST FROM NAPA: Chateau Montelena
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beautiful!
Comment by JenKneeBee 2007 May 1 @ 10:06 amHoly crap…that place is pretty. And why, oh why, don’t I get to see more of the sun? I miss it so.
Comment by Isabel 2007 May 1 @ 10:34 amSorry to hear about your tummy issues, but wow – Napa does look like a great place to convelesce! We’re on the east coast, so the drive through wine country is on our list of “gee, we should do that sometime!” items.
Comment by Trish Ryan 2007 May 1 @ 11:25 amAh well I am jealous. Napa valley has been on my list of places to vist for quite some time. Beautiful place, and great wine!!
Comment by Crowther 2007 May 1 @ 1:31 pmIt looks really lovely. I wish you would have felt better so that you could enjoy it to its fullest!
Comment by Angela 2007 May 1 @ 8:22 pmSorry to hear the cramps spoiled your time. It looks amazing! I’ve been to Italy and Germany’s wine regions, and those photos do look very similar.
Wine. YUM.
Comment by alyndabear 2007 May 2 @ 1:01 amI warned you. In spite of it, you chose to go back to freaking beautiful CA!!
Comment by Alice 2007 May 2 @ 6:47 amHa!
I once drove through Carmel Valley, and it made me very very home sick because it looked like Southern France. So I second Adam in his saying that this area looks like Italy.
I too am jealous.
That is really beautiful. Especially the castle below (why didn’t I comment on that one instead?)
Looks like you had a great weekend!
Comment by Janssen 2007 May 2 @ 8:23 amWow! Beautiful pictures! I would love to see Napa sometime, but the closest I’ve been so far is the mock wine country in California Adventures (or whatever that Disney park is called).
Sorry about the woman issues.
Comment by Brittany 2007 May 2 @ 9:52 am