In addition to all the wineries, the Napa area has lots of fun things to do. We enjoyed shopping in St. Helena. I believe we spent close to an hour at Olivio which specializes in olive oils and vinegars and allows lots of free samples...so wonderful. Of course, we stopped at the chocolate shop and made a little purchase. I also love visiting the Oakvill Grocergy. It's a small store, but I love their selections. I have a feeling if I lived in Napa, I would visit these places a lot!
Ryan and I also paid a visit to the Culinary Institute of America ("CIA"). It is a huge, old, stone building. This picture only shows a very small portion of it, but you can still see it's beautiful.
I hope on a future visit to take a class and/or eat in their restaurant. How great would that be? They have a fantastic gift shop that I could spend hours in. Part of that gift shop is where they sell their chocolates. We couldn't resist buying an assortment, and they were awesome!
One afternoon, we visited Auberge du Soleil. This resort must have some of the best views in valley; see the picture below. They are ridiculously expensive though, so we opted to have afternoon drinks and dessert which were definitely worth it!
One day we had a lunch picnic at the St. Clement winery. I loved this picture Ryan took at our table.
Mom and Dad were enjoying this picnic!
This was the view from our picnic table...not bad, huh?
There are many excellent restaurants to choose from, and we found several of them! We all loved Cindy's Backstreet. I had to put this picture in because it made us laugh pretty good. Mom had mentioned before we arrived how much she loved their grape soup (sounds weird I know, but it's pretty tasty!). She was thrilled when she heard it was one of the specials of the evening. Mom, Dad and I each ordered a bowl. So, this picture shows Mom with her bowl, my bowl is across from her (you can't see me in the picture), and Dad's bowl is in the middle because he decided to let Mom have a little extra; it made us laugh though because it looks like Mom ordered three bowls. Maybe you had to be there, but it makes me smile to see this!
As we left Napa and headed to Sausalito, we stopped for lunch at Domaine Chandon.
They had beautiful grounds to enjoy while walking up and while eating.
Of course, they are known for their sparkling wines, so we all enjoyed a glass. Ryan had a classic sparkling wine while I enjoyed a rose glass.
Normally, I am not one to take pictures of my food at a restaurant. However, the food they served was some of the most beautifully presented I ever seen. Add in that this was all amazing deliciously, and this was an awesome lunch! I didn't get a picture of Dad's halibut, but here's the rest of the meal.
Mom's chicken with corn succotash.
Ryan's pork tenderloin with couscous, figs and peppers.
My beef tenderloin with frisee salad and little sides. LOVED THIS.
After enjoying lunch so much, we had to have dessert. Seriously, had to because we knew it would be amazing. For the record, we were right.
This is Ryan's chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream, caramelized bananas and graham cracker.
This is my cream brulee with ladyfingers. Mom and Dad also shared one of these.
This was the sign as you leave. I wanted to say this to them a million times over for that fantastic meal!
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