Our First Trip To San Francisco, Monterey, & Napa
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Originally written October 3rd, 2016 (before I would call Drew my boyfriend apparently):
A trip that started out as a little bit of a joke turned into an awesome vacation. As my friend Drew’s birthday rapidly approached, I decided to utilize hitlist to type in some dates and see if a little adventure from Cleveland somewhere could be possible. Thanks to Frontier, we were able to find very cheap nonstop tickets to San Francisco for a 6-day trip. We left on August 24th and arrived in San Francisco at 4pm! By the time we had gotten our bags and made our way to our rental car, we realized we would be driving through rush hour traffic, so we made a pit stop at Drew’s family friends house in San Carlos. We had dinner in downtown San Carlos at Patxi’s Pizza and enjoyed sitting outside and learning about life in San Carlos. After dinner we made our way to Monterey, arriving around 10pm.
We were both so jet-lagged and tired, we fell right asleep. In the morning we made our way to Lou Lou’s on the pier in Monterey for some awesome breakfast. This place was a little shack on the pier, and we got to sit at the bar and watch them make our breakfast. Both of our meals were amazing, and I was happy to have found the place. Since jet lag had us up at 8am, we decided that we could spend our morning at the aquarium, and boy am I glad that we went when we did. The place was pretty empty as it was just opening, and I also go to see them feed the otters!!! As we finished exploring the aquarium it continued to fill up… perfect timing. At this point, we were so tired from exploring and the jet lag we decided that we needed a nap. After a quick pit stop at Ghirardelli for some ice cream, we popped back to the hotel to sleep. When we woke up we decided to meet some friend who were also in the area for drinks. We ended up having a great dinner with them back at the pier. Fabulous seafood and wine and good company made for a lovely night!
Day 2 led us to the 17-mile drive, Pebble Beach for breakfast, and Carmel. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate on this day and it was cold and dreary, but the view was still pretty gorgeous!! We even got to see the Lone Cyprus. After walking around Carmel for a few hours we decided to start our drive back to San Francisco, and the weather started to clear up. The views along the coast were some of my favorite.
When we finally arrived in San Francisco we checked into our hotel, Hotel Carlton, which was absolutely excellent!! They even offered us free wine in the lobby every night we stayed there. If you are visiting San Fran I highly recommend staying here, the staff was absolutely charming and welcoming, the location perfect.
We ended up going to play mini golf at an indoor mini golf place I had found online called Urban Putt. An indoor 14 hole course where you can drink beer/cocktails and each hole is a different theme, such a great idea!!! We had a blast even though the place was pretty crowded.
Saturday found us driving to the Golden Gate Bridge and then on to Napa. We were not dressed for the cold windy temperatures at the Golden Gate so we didn’t stay very long, but I did manage to get some pictures.
Napa was probably my favorite part about the trip. I know basically nothing about wine so I learned a lot from the places we visited, especially from our server at Elizabeth Spencer Winery (which I highly recommend stopping at). We also did an olive oil tasting at Round Pound, that I also recommend. It was unlike anything I had ever done before and the staff was very friendly and knowledgeable. A welcome break from wine tasting!
Sunday we went to a Giants game, saw Fishermans wharf (SO MANY TOURISTS) and Lombard Street.
I could go on, but this post is already long enough and I think I have summed up my favorite parts of our trip!! I had a blast and could easily see myself returning to San Fran. We also got to see the city from the presidential suite of the Hyatt downtown, the painted ladies and visited Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto.
