We landed at about 12:30pm Cali time and walked out to beautiful chilly 65 degree weather! Yay for the bay area weather system. We got our rental car (we were upgraded from a mid size to an Xterra because they were out of mid-size vehicles.)We drove from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sonoma for lunch at the suggestion of our Inn's concierge and had the best lunch I've ever had at the Girl and the Fig in Sonoma. We had an awesome charcuterie platter (sp?) and I had grilled polenta and fried green tomatoes and Chris had Quiche and salad. We walked around a bit and looked at the shops then drove to Napa to our Inn.

The place was really cute and there was a jacuzzi in our room! That night we had a forgettable dinner downtown. Downtown Napa is really strange. We got in on a Monday and it was deserted by dinner time. It was a little creepy.

Tuesday we started our wine tastings and went to the Niebaum-Coppola Winery. We had an awesome tour and tasted four wines - all director's reserve. They were really good. We don't know anything about wine, so we just swished and smelled and tasted and pretended like we knew what we were doing. There is a movie memorabelia museum there with things from Coppola's movies like the Godfather desk, and stuff from his version of Dracula. (Oh how I wanted to love that movie but couldn't) There was also the car from Tucker and some real life Oscars. Apparently Coppola himself lives on the property in this giant house. It's so pretty there. We were very jealous of Francis Ford and gave his house the finger out of jealousy.

After our tour and tasting, we drove up route 29 and went to the Franciscan Winery and had lunch at the Silverado Brewing Company. Mmm. Hamburgers. The Franciscan tasting room is pretty cool. We had four really good wines there. The Silverado is a great inexpensive place for lunch too.

We ended our wine day at Sterling Vineyards. They have a cool air tram thingy that takes you up through the trees to their building. They have a nice self guided tour. But we didn't like their wines at all.

That night we had dinner at the Culinary Institute of America where our waiter looked just like our friend Jerry Budge. The CIA is in a building that looks like a castle! I had squash blossoms stuffed with ratattouie. (okay - turns out I'm not a fan of ratattouie) Chris had a hangar steak.

We ended the night by passing out at the Inn.