Napa trip with friends

Have you ever been in Napa? :) In this gorgeous wine country in California... I've been there several times but this time, I guess, was the special one. Why?..



First of all, the trip were meant to show Napa country to my old friend Nadya who was visiting me from my mother country Ukraine. She was the first of my friends who visited me since I came to United States :).

The second reason, I met there Yana (WineCountryLife) in person. We chat with Yana a lot on Etsy Russian team forum on Etsy, but it was first time when I met her in person. Basically, there are were four of us. I knew all those girls but they met first time at all. I was worried in the beginning because I really wanted the trip pleasant but, and I wanted the girls to feel relaxed. But you know... new people... I afraid they could feel uncomfortable. But I believe everything went smoothly. I even had feeling by the end of the day that we are all old friends. :) I hope girls felt the same... :)

The third reason is.... Yana lives in Napa Valley. So she showed as places where I've never been before! For example, our first stop was at Chandon Winery.


The specialty of the winery is that there are only champagne wines. We spent there more than hour chatting, testing wine, walking around, and taking pictures :) That was amazingly relaxing time... no rush... just good company and delicious wine :)

Zhanna, Yana, Nadya... I'm taking the picture... :)



Yana with Napa Valley (just a very small part) view on background... :)


Next our stop was in small town of Yountville. According to Yana, Yontville is a capital of gourmet food (Yana, please correct me if I'm wrong :) ). There is even this great sculpture of funny chef with real kitchen gadgets.


There are expensive restaurants, cute hotels, and... Bouchon bakery :) Of course, we couldn't skip it! :)

So we had kinda small girls paradise :)...


Spent some time eating these delicious deserts and chatting, and laughing...




Our last stop was.... in a castle! Real castle! Yana took us to Castello di Amorosa .


I really felt like I came to medieval time. Castle... with a moat...


But... this is not real castle :) It's a winery that was open to public in 2007. So... modern pretty much. But it 's built with keeping traditions of medieval castle. According to Yana's words, even part of stones, that are used in the building, is from Italy, and they were taken from real medieval castle. That's why when you are there, you would really expect to meed a real knight, or beautiful lady, or even a ghost...


After walking around and taking pictures...


... we again ended up with testing wine :)



So... It was amazing day. Great weather, great company, relaxing environment... what can be better? :)

Yana, thank you very much for this amazing trip!