The Napa Valley

Yesterday, we travelled up from Yosemite to the Napa Valley; a long but uneventful drive. You could say we have moved from the spiritual to the spirit! Today we have explored the town of Napa itself, which is classic middle America, well presented, leafy and clean. It is only about an hour from San Francisco and consequently is a favourite for weekends. Two valleys lay side by side, Napa and Sonoma, both famous for their wines and there are certainly plenty of wineries to chose from. One interesting thing we have noticed since arriving here, is the proliferation of microbreweries and the production of local good quality beers, or so Peter tells me. This would have been unheard of thirty years ago when we first came to America. A gassy lager was the best you could hope for and now there are beer flights to accompany the wine version. We had supper tonight at the Stone Brewery, a large converted warehouse on the river, very atmospheric and with more draught beers on offer than you could shake a stick at.
Our day tomorrow consists of a trip on the Napa Wine Train. A vintage well appointed train which serves a gourmet lunch whilst cruising the valley. We are to stop at one of the oldest wineries for a tour and a tasting. I’ll let you know how it goes.
There was one incident of mirth worth mentioning this morning. We parked our car in a designated car park to go and investigate a couple of restaurants. On returning to the car Peter was ahead of me and I hopped into the car as usual and went to put my seat belt on. It took me a second or two to twig that my maps were not in the side pocket and the water bottles in the central console weren’t familiar. I looked up to find no Peter in the driver’s seat and realised that I had jumped into the wrong car! They were both dark grey identical SUVs - an easy mistake I keep telling myself. I’m simply relieved the car’s owner wasn’t in situ and embarrassing explanations could be avoided. My bad luck was that the identikit model had been left unlocked. I was out of there in no time and dashed to our own to find PL in fits of laughter as you can imagine. I will endeavour to behave tomorrow!Baca selengkapnya