After checking out of the Gaige House, we toured downtown Sonoma and found a little Parisian cafe to stop in for brunch. Then, we drove to the Napa River Inn which was the hotel we booked for the second part of our trip.

After checking in, we headed to the Oxbow Public Market. It’s an indoor market with multiple vendors selling all sorts of goodies. It’s mostly food items. We picked up tea + chocolate.

Then, we went to Del Dotto for a candlelight cave tour. During our wine country trip, we toured several wineries. Del Dotto was by far our favorite. Hands down.

Their tour was really hands on and they shared lots of knowledge about the wine making process. They explained how little subtle differences can greatly affect the taste of the wine. For instance, they let us taste the same wine that was aging in two different barrels made out of wood harvested from two different areas of the world. The two wine samples tasted completely different because of the differences in the wood.

Their cave is one of the oldest in the area. And, along the tour, if you don’t like the wine sample, they encourage you to splash it along the walls of the cave.

After the tour + tasting, we walked around downtown Napa. Then we walked over to Morimoto for dinner. The courses were so creative + yummy!

Read more from our wine country trip – day one / day two, part one / day two, part two

After our lunch at Gott’s, we headed to Castello di Amorosa to see their beautiful vineyard and Tuscan style castle.

After, we headed to Schramberg intending to taste the champagne of the White House but it was closed for the evening. So, we drove on to the city of Castiloga. The downtown area has little shops, restaurants + wine bars. While walking along there, we stumbled upon these wish trees. Each tree had a different theme, and there were containers with tags + pens near the trunk of each tree for people to leave their wishes. We left one wish for us and one for Em.

After our stroll + a stop at Up Valley Vintners, we headed to Bouchon for a very yummy dinner.

Our second day in wine country started out with a fantastic breakfast at our b & b and a relaxing message. Then, we headed out to St. Helena for lunch. Again, we took that crazy curvy road that we took the night before. Since the road had been pitch black with no street lights, we thought we should see what it looked like during the day. I’m glad we did. The views were spectacular. See the yellow patches all the way up in the hills? Those are crops of grapes!

On the curvy road, we also happened upon this beautiful vineyard. I’ve never seen such color! It was breathtaking. Definitely one of our favorite parts of the trip. And completely unplanned.

It was Google’s directions that led us to the curvy road. After driving on it once at night and once during the day, we decided to start taking another route even though it was longer. The alternate route was much less curvy + scary.

Once off the curvy road, we spotted the famous Napa sign.

Then we made a pitstop for lunch at Gott’s in St. Helena. Originally, it was called Taylor’s Refresher.

It’s a little roadside eatery where you can order wine or milkshakes with your burger. The ahi poke crispy tacos + sweet potato fries were SO GOOD! I’m still craving those fries.

We flew into a foggy San Francisco, grabbed a quick lunch, drove over the Golden Gate Bridge…

and headed to Sausalito for a cup of warm coffee.

Then, to kick off our wood + silverware anniversary, we drove a winding + foggy road to Muir Woods to do a little walking tour of the park.

The redwood trees were spectacular + so tall! It was nearly impossible for us to depict their lengthy size.

Afterwards, we drove to Glen Ellen to park our luggage and get settled in at the Gaige House - the bed and breakfast we stayed at for the first portion of our trip.

After getting freshened up, we took a very curvy + dark road through the hills to Yountville to dine at Bottega where we toasted to five years of marriage.

This year for our 5 year anniversary, instead of gifting each other little experiences like usual, we decided to do a big adventure. A big wine country adventure which was perfect for our wood + silverware anniversary.

Kacey’s parents watched Em while we were away. We missed her wildly. However, we enjoyed the extra sleep and savored our indulgent getaway.

I’ve got tons of pictures to sort and edit from our trip. As I go through them, I’m going to share a few here along with a little bit of what we saw, ate + did.

This fall, Kacey and I are celebrating 5 years of marriage and taking a little anniversary trip to wine country. Neither of us have been before and the area has so many restaurants + wineries that we are having a hard time trying to narrow them down! These are some of the options we’re considering.

1 – Del Dotto Vineyards / candlelight cave tour
2 – Schramsberg / champagne of the White House
3 – Sterling Vineyards / arial tram
4 – Castello di Amorosa / castle + beautiful vineyard view
5 – Rotisserie & Wine / Chef Tyler Florence’s restaurant
6 – Gott’s Roadside / formerly Taylor’s Refresher
7 – Morimoto / Iron Chef Morimoto’s restaurant
8 – Bouchon Bakery / Chef Thomas Keller’s Bakery
9 – Bottega / Chef Micheal Chiarello’s restaurant

Readers, we would love to hear your recommendations! Anything we shouldn’t miss? Or, things we should pass on? It doesn’t have to be food or wine related :]

A few weekends ago, Kacey, Em, my cousin and I took a tour of Inner Space Cavern. It was a pretty neat experience. We took a cable car down into the cave. We learned that the cave was discovered in the 60′s by the Highway Department drilling for the highway system. Can you imagine such a find?