Escaping the city

A San Francisco treat

There is no shortage of activities to keep you busy in and around California’s Bay Area

Travel location: San Francisco and northern California.
Travelers: Trent Modglin and Debbie Podmore.

Where you stayed: We were fortunate enough to have a relative who, despite living in New York the past six years or so, has kept a rent-controlled apartment in the popular neighborhood of Russian Hill in San Francisco. That served as our home base while we explored the city and took day trips up the coast, to Yosemite National Park and to wine country. We stayed at the Sonoma Hotel, a quaint bed & breakfast while in wine country one night and the apartment in Russian Hill the other four nights.

The people, the culture: Outside of perhaps New York, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more diverse population than the one that calls San Francisco and the Bay Area home. It seems everyone who can somehow afford to live there absolutely loves it. Tourism is a big industry, so you know you’re going to be treated well when you visit. In Sonoma, you’ll find a lot of money and a lot of people passionate about sharing their knowledge and appreciation for wine, and of course a lot of people who love to just taste it as well. Nature lovers converge on Yosemite, but you can escape the touristy spots by locating the more difficult trails and heading out on your own.

Activities of note: We basically tried to do as much as possible in a little more than four days. On Saturday, we explored a large portion of San Francisco on foot, visiting the Fisherman’s Wharf and popular Pier 39, walking down the Embarcadero path along the shore, through downtown and up Lombard Street. Chinatown is huge and entertaining to walk through, especially to window shop, and there is also an incredible amount of Italian restaurants to choose from.

On Sunday, we took a drive up the coast, crossing the famed Golden Gate Bridge with stops in the shop-filled town of Sausalito, Muir Woods, where you can hike amongst the redwoods in a majestic protected forest, and Bodega Bay.

The beauty of Yosemite National Park lured us about three-and-a-half hours east on Monday. We spent the day hiking and seeing the sights, though we departed late that evening feeling as though we’d taken in about five percent of what the immense park had to offer.

On Tuesday, we were off to wine country, which begins less than an hour northeast of San Francisco. On advice from many folks, we chose the friendlier, more relaxed and less expensive Sonoma Valley over Napa Valley, meeting friends for a round of tastings at about five different wineries along the southern edge in the afternoon. Each winery is surprisingly unique, and if you do your research beforehand, you can definitely find something your speed. Some are a little fancier, with gourmet restaurants, areas for wedding receptions and grand tours of the facility. Others look more like barns and have a chatty owner who will wax poetic about “the oak and cherry flavor and smooth finish” and the process of getting the grape from the field to the dinner table. It’s easy to feel clueless about wine in these parts, but fun to take it all in. Just be prepared for about a 30-degree difference between San Francisco and Sonoma in the summertime.

The costs: Our flight from O’Hare to Oakland was right at $300, and with the free apartment, the only cost for lodging was about $120 for a small but nice room at a bed & breakfast in downtown Sonoma. Prices can go up steeply from there, depending on when you visit and whether you prefer a package set-up (with tasting tours, spas, meals, etc.). Dinners were not exorbitant, and we packed a cooler for a picnic lunch at Yosemite to save a little cash and enjoy the scenery more. A lot of wine tastings are free in the Sonoma Valley, though some charge a few bucks for a flight of five samples. Renting a car is the best way to go if you want to see the area, but parking in San Francisco can be tricky — not only finding parking, but having the confidence to parallel park on the city’s many steep hills.

What makes you want to go back: The vast differences in terrain and climate, not to mention the unlimited amount of activities available within just a few hours of San Francisco. Basically, anything you want to do from a physical, outdoors standpoint is there waiting for you either in the city or nearby. There is plenty of history, culture, breathtaking sights, every type of food you can imagine and maybe as much diversity as you’ll find anywhere. It truly can be about four vacations wrapped into one if you want it to be.

What you’d do differently: I think we agreed that we would like to spend more time in Yosemite and wine country especially. One day hardly does either justice. It looked like people were having a lot of fun in the campgrounds and whitewater rafting in Yosemite. The park is so expansive, you could easily lose yourself within its boundaries for a week or more. We chose to head north to Bodega Bay on a coastal day trip, but I seem to recall the path south toward Monterey as being much more scenic the last time I was out there. Expecting jagged cliffs and waves crashing the shoreline along Highway 1 heading north of Sausalito, we were a bit disappointed. I’d hiked along picturesque beaches near Monterey before, but the views going north were more of winding roads through farm country and rolling fields.

We also were a little disappointed we didn’t have time to make it back to Fisherman’s Wharf to try some fresh crab. The idea of watching those sitting next to us devour such a delicacy the first day and then to never make it back bothered us probably more than it should have.

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