Kristina does the Internets: Another Weekend in Wine Country

A few weeks ago we headed to Napa to celebrate our third wedding anniversary! I really can't believe it's been three years already, but it's easier to remember when I look at my three year old niece (she was born a week and a half after our wedding - my poor 9 month pregnant sister at the wedding!). I'm fortunate to be sent to San Francisco for work a lot, so Jeff and I decide every now and then to have him fly out to meet me for the weekend. This was our third trip to Napa Valley, and we basically copied our itinerary from the last trip, just with a hotel down the street and a few different dinner reservations.

We stayed at Napa Valley Lodge in Yountville, really only because we loved Yountville so much but Hotel Villagio (where we stayed on our last trip) was under construction! The Napa Valley Lodge was a little quieter because the pool didn't have a full-on bar, but really it was basically the same experience, with a champagne breakfast looking out into the vineyards in the morning and a pretty pool. The Napa Valley Lodge had prettier rooms than what we saw at the Villagio, but I assume the Villagio's rooms will be gorgeous when the remodel is finished!

Yountville is a great place to stay in Napa Valley for a couple of reasons - the first and most important being that it's really walkable with great restaurants, so after a long day of wine tasting you don't have to worry about driving! As city kids, that's really important to me and Jeff ;) Also, when I say great restaurants, I mean some of the best in the country! We still haven't made it to French Laundry (almost squeaked into a lunch reservation this trip!) but have loved Bistro Jeanty (omg the rabbit pasta!!), Bottega, and Brix for fancier dinners, and R+D Kitchen and Redd Wood for more casual meals. Yountville is also a really cute little town with little boutiques and parks - one night we were there they showed a movie in the park next to our hotel, and there were tons of people out enjoying their fancy bottles of wine.

As far as things to do, we went on another wine tour with Platypus. We love their tours because they take you around to smaller wineries you probably would never visit otherwise, and because it's usually a really fun group of people. This time we went on a weekday and it was a smaller group and more relaxed experience. Besides the wine tour, we visited Bennett Lane again and got the VIP experience since we're members there. They really have the prettiest gardens of any of the wineries I've been to in Napa! We grabbed sandwiches from Giugni on our drive up to the winery and sat on their back patio with a bottle of wine for a couple of hours - so beautiful and relaxing!

Besides drinking all of the wine, we also did some pool time and hammock time and played bocce at our hotel. I had just learned how to really play bocce earlier that week from a bocce national champion (which yes, is a real thing haha) at a work event and it turns out that training paid off, because I beat Jeff in both of our games! And that, my friends, is quite an achievement, because I don't think I've ever previously beaten Jeff at any sport ;)