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Romance in Napa Valley Wine Country
Sunday, October 26, 2008 at 4:18PM Posted by Nancy D. Brown
As I walked into our small San Francisco apartment, tired from a weekend business conference, I immediately perked up when I opened the door and spied a dozen red roses proudly displayed on our rickety coffee table. Every room in the apartment was adorned with fresh flowers. Well, yes, ours was a one bedroom apartment, but the flowers were a wonderful gesture from my young husband.
Fast forward 22 years later and my husband still manages to pull off romantic moments. Last January I was wisked away to the Napa Valley for a romantic, birthday weekend at the Blackbird Inn. As we are frequent visitors to the Four Sisters Inns, we were given a room upgrade with sparkling wine and a box of chocolates chilling bedside. I love little momentos like this and appreciated that the chocolates were made locally.
That evening we dined in Yountville at Thomas Keller's Ad hoc family-style restaurant. Easier on the pocketbook than Keller's French Laundry, you can call ahead to the restaurant to see what's on the set price menu that week. While I loved everything on the menu, I was disappointed that the dessert was a lemon tart. Noticing my disappointment, our waiter appeared with piping hot chocolate chip cookies at the conclusion of the meal. Special touches like that will make me a devoted fan forever.
If stained glass windows, bubble baths and vineyard views turn you on, add St. Helena's Wine Country Inn to your romantic hotels list. A stay at the Vintner's Cottage will leave you feeling relaxed and renewed. The family run property caters to couples and oozes romance. Savory snacks in front of the fire place; no problem. A bubble bath after an in-room couples massage, complete with Bose speakers in the bathroom, makes this a great place to simply hang out and enjoy the vineyard view. You can lounge around in your comfy robe, or dine with the locals at nearby Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen.
Where do you stay when you are looking to put a little va-va-voom back into your relationship?
Thanks to Luv 2 Flickr for her beautiful roses photo.
Reader Comments (7)
Napa Valley certainly get my vote for a romantic place to go. Lovely story.
Sounds like a romantic getaway...and coming home to a house full of flowers. Nice!
I like to stay in Big Sur...whether it is the Yurts at Treebones, a nice room at Ventana or the Big Sur Lodge or just camping out under the stars..I think Big Sur is the most romantic place in the world.
Lovely post!! It sounds like you had a nice weekend away, and your husband is wonderfully romantic!
Stick me in a bed & breakfast away from my kids for a night, and that works for me!!
Was that Speek Blogging and Speed Tasting? Quite a combo I thought! Great conference up in Santa Rosa for all us speedy and otherwise wine bloggers. I enjoyed the over the top Gary from Wine Library, the sobering discussion on how to make money by blogging with Tom Wark and the snooty Alice Feiring on her take on technology and California wines. (She does get points for showing up, after not so positive comments in the LA Times about our state's wine.)
Great meeting you and will bookmark this very cool travel site.
thanks for the great St Helena recommendations - we have not stayed that far north, but maybe we should put it on our list of things to do!
Cheers,
This sounds like a wonderful place to stay. Thank you for the information. I'll be sure to pass this on to my readers.
nice to read your blog about Napa Valley. I had a chance to visit but unfortunately i missed it, but his time i have geared up not to miss that. however, thanks for this.