When you think of a relaxing day, it has to include great wine, great weather, chilled time with Sofia and lazily exploring a town. And that's exactly how we discovered Sonoma Valley.
We visited Ledher vineyards where the owner had built an incredible mansion that although it looked rather out of place was actually incredibly grand. The wine was pretty good too :). We drove into the quaint town of Sonoma which, like many sweet towns in the area, have a central common green area that draws the community together. We found the local Spanish Mission house that was built in the early 18th century. What we didn't realise was that the Spanish settlement trail existed for 300 years (1523 - 1823) and extended from Guatemala right up to this wee little settlement which was their most northern outpost.
While Ale visited the mission and museum, Sofia and I walked along the small stone wall and found a really cool cactus plant in the garden that seemed to be laden with some type of fruit. There was one on the ground, so after inspecting it for spines, it picked it up for a closer look. Just before I handed it to Sofia, I saw a good 20 little sticky hairs stuck in my fingers! Little bugger. So like a true tourist, I spent the next 5 mins pulling them out.
We meet some lovely parents and children in the park - a guy from Brisbane and a girl from Italy (you can't make this stuff up!) who confirmed that everyone worked in the wine industry here. Nice place to live and work :).
No no, i fichi d'india non si raccolgono con le mani! Lo dice qualcuno che l'ha imparato a proprie spese quando aveva ~10 anni :(
ReplyDeleteLe spine sono piccolissime e molto fastidiose.
Cmq mi piacerebbe assaggiare un fico della California!!!