As I mentioned in my last post, we spent the weekend at The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa.
We began our weekend Saturday morning with a shared room service order of crab eggs Benedict and a plate of smoked salmon with cream cheese and a bagel – yum! From there it was down to the on site Willow Stream Spa.
MJ booked a 90 minute couples massage for late in the afternoon, so we spent the first half of our afternoon by the pool. I hadn’t had a massage in years and this was the first done for pure relaxation. Heaven! From there we enjoyed the self-guided Bathing Ritual in their bathhouse which features exfoliating showers, two hot mineral water soaking pools, herbal steam room, dry sauna, and cool down showers. By the end of all this I was ready to take a relaxation-induced nap.
For dinner on Saturday we stayed on site to have dinner at Santé Restaurant where they had the most amazing “Grown-up Macaroni and Cheese” featuring Maine lobster, black truffles and Fontina Val d’Aosta cheese. We both went with the halibut for our entree and for dessert we had one of each of their souffles, I had the blueberry which I thought would be too large but I ended up eating pretty quickly and MJ had the dark chocolate. The dinner wrapped up with further bite-size desserts which they arranged on a plate saying “Congratulations” on account of our engagement.
Sunday MJ let me make the plans. Fortunately one of the things he did on Friday before the proposal was leave his car in Sonoma after setting up the hotel room, so he the limo to the city to pick me up. We had the car all weekend! We had been to the concierge desk the night before to ask about things to do aside from tasting and he mentioned Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. When we went back to our room I did a bit of research and decided we’d head up there, the weather was hot (in the 90s all day) but the trails promised to be easy and show us some amazing trees. The park did not disappoint!
From there we took another recommendation from the concierge and headed up to Healdsburg which they told us was popular for shopping and dining. We ended up at Bear Republic Brewing because even when we’re in wine country, I am a beer girl.
On our way up to the redwoods we had seen a sign for a The Petrified Forest and followed up with some quick searches on our phones. The place had all the trappings of a tourist trap, but once you got past the ticket counter and huge store that was out front, the trail and petrified trees were pretty cool.
By the end of the day we were tired, but our late lunch caused us not to be hungry until after 9PM. After 9PM in Sonoma causes dining options to be quite limited and we ended up at Santé again, which I’m not complaining about! Instead of dessert there we picked up a s’mores kit (which I had noticed the day before in the room service menu while ordering breakfast) from the hotel bar and headed to a fire pit at the hotel to enjoy some 11PM snacks outside. Perfect way to wrap up the evening.
Monday was the 4th of July. Fortunately, in spite of the holiday, it’s a big tourist weekend in Sonoma so most of the various wineries and shops are still open. We checked out of the hotel and headed out for some tastings.
It was another hot day and we made the decision to only do one wine tasting, and that was at Imagery Estate Winery, the sister winery to the one we got engaged at, and which features the mini Parthenon where we got engaged on all their wine labels. The staff was super friendly and we walked out with a bottle of Aleatico Rosé and Code Blue.
We spent the rest of the day visiting tastings of other sorts, including B.R. Cohn where we bought olive oil, some mustards and a chocolate syrup liquor sauce (for ice cream!). We picked up some cheeses in downtown Sonoma where they were having a big 4th of July festival and also picked up some chocolates and fudge. We also stopped at Jacuzzi Family Winery where we tasted some more of The Olive Press olive oils and picked up a bottle of garlic rosemary olive oil.
We headed home after Jacuzzi and were welcomed by the cool air of San Francisco. On the way we picked up some dinner and instead of going out for fireworks we headed up to the roof to see the highest fireworks from several fireworks shows around the city.
Thursday, Jul 14th, 2011 at 18:21
I am so happy for both of you!! Congrats!