Weekend in San Fran & Napa :)

Last weekend my boyfriend and I went to San Francisco and Napa for our three year anniversary. I had never been to either place so needless to say, I was super excited! Well, I take that back…I went to San Fran once with my family when I was around 8 years old, but I don’t remember much. So this was kind of my first trip, at least my first visit there in my adult life.

Anyways, we drove up early Saturday morning and I was so entertained on the 6 hour drive by all the beautiful country we drove through. There were so many cows roaming around the rolling hills (yay for no enclosures!), which Sean and I kept calling ‘happy cows’ and saying “Happy cows come from California!” The hills were so verdant and painted with vibrant mustard colored flowers. We actually saw more of this in Napa, and I ran through some during my run up there, which I’m coming to.
We spent an incredible day in San Fran and saw so much from driving across the bay bridge, to walking around Embarcadero and the financial district, to hiking around Nob Hill (where our hotel was…they even upgraded us to the suite for our anniversary!), and cruising around Union Square. I definitely fell in love with San Francisco and we had such a fun and romantic day and evening there.

<3

The next morning we drove to Napa. Of course we had to stop and take this gem of a picture:

It was cold at night walk through Union Square.

Love Love Love San Fran

After driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, we stopped in a cute little town called Sausalito and had brunch at a little Ma n Pap café. BEST blueberry pancakes EVER!! Then onwards to Napa! It was a breathtaking drive. We drove through hundreds of vineyards, and through the beautiful Sonoma County. When we arrived in Napa, Sean surprised me with booking an incredible room at the new Avia Hotel.  He wanted to plan everything in Napa since I was doing that for SF, so I didn’t even know where we were staying until we got there! It was a gorgeous hotel in downtown Napa. He also surprised me with a romantic couples massage that afternoon and when we got back to our room from our massages there was a bottle of wine and cheese/meat/fruit plate waiting for us. Everything was so romantic. We relaxed and enjoyed the view from our room before getting ready for dinner at Mustard’s Grill.  I won’t go into details, but I will say that if you go to Napa, dine at Mustard’s. It was in a vineyard with a spectacular view and the food was outrageously good. Go there!
The next morning I decided to go for a run. I wanted to get at least one run in during our long weekend, and this seemed like the perfect time to do so. The weather had been clear and sunny all weekend with temps reaching 75, so I wanted to head out before it got warmer. I ran through downtown Napa from our hotel, ran past some of the annual mustard festival (not related to Mustard’s Grill restaurant), and ran next to vineyards, through wildflower fields, then back to our hotel. I even ran past Napa Running Co! That was a cool little running store. Not so little though. Here are some of the pictures I took during my run:

Downtown Napa

Mustard Festival/Pre-St Pattys celebration.  There was a band playing in the park on the right too!

Beautiful wine country

Mustard colored wild flowers painting the hills

The vines were beginning to bud

Napa Running Company!!

Napa Church--I thought this was a beautiful building

The old Uptown theatre in Downtown Napa

Wine Tasting!

That afternoon we decided to make the most of our last day and do some wine tasting! We first stopped at Artesa Winery located on top of a hill and the view was gorgeous. Wines…eh. We then went to a great little winery called Folio.

It was spectacular country

They’re actually owned by the Mondavi family. It was close to 4:30 when they close, so we were the only ones there. Patti who was working was so friendly, she took us out back to the wraparound porch that looks out onto the vineyard and all the rolling hills of Napa and just kept bringing wines out for us to enjoy. She just said, relax, enjoy the view, and I’ll bring out a sample of all our wines and some that we don’t even include on our ‘tasting’ menu. We had great conversation with her and Bill, who also works for Folio, while sitting on the porch, drinking delicious wines, and watching the sunset.

Sitting on the porch at Folio Winery enjoying a 100% cabernet Rose

Sean and I ended up buying a case of wine.
It was the perfect weekend and the perfect way to spend our anniversary <3 I ran through some beautiful country and we felt like it was heaven on earth.

xoxo