I recently went on a whirlwind trip to Napa for a lovely girls weekend, specifically, a bachelorette party. While we considered a variety of activities, from spa time to hiking, ultimately, we settled for a food-centric weekend (surprise, surprise).
Our travel chronicles:
Friday: Everyone makes there way to Napa. We stayed at a Vino Bello Resort, which offers condominium-style lodging. Despite a minor hiccup at check-in, where they accidentally gave us the key to someone else's room (okay, that's not minor and is pretty bad), we checked into a nice and spacious two bedroom, two bathroom suite. Dinner at R&D Kitchen. The line was too long for the actual restaurant, so we just grabbed a seat outdoors. The more limited bar menu items didn't sound as exciting, except for the pulled pork sandwich, so we all ordered the exact same thing. The food came quickly, and the sandwich was delicious and huge; we probably could've shared, but we scraped our plates clean. Waste not, want not.
Saturday: Our big day of adventure. We started off with brunch at Bouchon. You really can't go wrong with that. Then we walked over to the French Laundry culinary garden down the block for some pretty pictures and fragrant smells. Next, we moseyed on over to V Marketplace to enjoy the air conditioning and browse the boutiques there. The marketplace is also home to Kollar Chocolates, so I picked up some fancy chocolates to take home as a gift for the husband at home.
Once sufficiently cooled down, we braved the heat once more and went to Mumm Winery, which is known for their variety of sparkling wines (very bachelorette appropriate!). They have a few different tasting flights available, or you can always order a la carte. FYI, they give very generous pours (two thumbs up). I wasn't a huge fan of the wines I tried in my tasting so didn't buy anything, but it was still a very enjoyable experience (and we snacked on our takeaway Bouchon macaron). Because we clearly didn't have enough food, we went to Oxbow Market after the winery to walk around, and of course I had to have some ice cream from Three Twins Ice Cream. It was absolutely necessary to help me cool down from the heat.
We had a late dinner reservation at Ad Hoc, which was a good call because no one was hungry, so we just went back to the resort to relax (aka digest) before dinner. Ad Hoc is a family style restaurant, and I think I liked the starters and sides more than the main pork entree that day, but it was a nice meal overall. Apparently they made a mistake and only gave us food for four people instead of our party of six, and while we noticed (e.g., not enough wings or grilled cheese sandwiches to go around so some people had to share), there was still more than enough food, and we could not even finish the pork entree (although cleaned up shop for everything else).
Sunday: After all the eating out and food adventures from the prior day, we decided to stay in and have brunch in our suite at the resort, as we brought a lot of food and snacks and drinks, and it would be a pity to not eat those pastries from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse, for example. So in a nutshell, we ate and drank some more and finally got around to playing some bachelorette games before heading home.
I originally thought that the trip would've felt too rushed, but it actually felt like a pretty comfortable and relaxing pace, and we got in so many yums and wonderful memories. Perfect girls trip weekend.
Our travel chronicles:
Friday: Everyone makes there way to Napa. We stayed at a Vino Bello Resort, which offers condominium-style lodging. Despite a minor hiccup at check-in, where they accidentally gave us the key to someone else's room (okay, that's not minor and is pretty bad), we checked into a nice and spacious two bedroom, two bathroom suite. Dinner at R&D Kitchen. The line was too long for the actual restaurant, so we just grabbed a seat outdoors. The more limited bar menu items didn't sound as exciting, except for the pulled pork sandwich, so we all ordered the exact same thing. The food came quickly, and the sandwich was delicious and huge; we probably could've shared, but we scraped our plates clean. Waste not, want not.
Saturday: Our big day of adventure. We started off with brunch at Bouchon. You really can't go wrong with that. Then we walked over to the French Laundry culinary garden down the block for some pretty pictures and fragrant smells. Next, we moseyed on over to V Marketplace to enjoy the air conditioning and browse the boutiques there. The marketplace is also home to Kollar Chocolates, so I picked up some fancy chocolates to take home as a gift for the husband at home.
Once sufficiently cooled down, we braved the heat once more and went to Mumm Winery, which is known for their variety of sparkling wines (very bachelorette appropriate!). They have a few different tasting flights available, or you can always order a la carte. FYI, they give very generous pours (two thumbs up). I wasn't a huge fan of the wines I tried in my tasting so didn't buy anything, but it was still a very enjoyable experience (and we snacked on our takeaway Bouchon macaron). Because we clearly didn't have enough food, we went to Oxbow Market after the winery to walk around, and of course I had to have some ice cream from Three Twins Ice Cream. It was absolutely necessary to help me cool down from the heat.
We had a late dinner reservation at Ad Hoc, which was a good call because no one was hungry, so we just went back to the resort to relax (aka digest) before dinner. Ad Hoc is a family style restaurant, and I think I liked the starters and sides more than the main pork entree that day, but it was a nice meal overall. Apparently they made a mistake and only gave us food for four people instead of our party of six, and while we noticed (e.g., not enough wings or grilled cheese sandwiches to go around so some people had to share), there was still more than enough food, and we could not even finish the pork entree (although cleaned up shop for everything else).
Sunday: After all the eating out and food adventures from the prior day, we decided to stay in and have brunch in our suite at the resort, as we brought a lot of food and snacks and drinks, and it would be a pity to not eat those pastries from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse, for example. So in a nutshell, we ate and drank some more and finally got around to playing some bachelorette games before heading home.
I originally thought that the trip would've felt too rushed, but it actually felt like a pretty comfortable and relaxing pace, and we got in so many yums and wonderful memories. Perfect girls trip weekend.
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