🌿 RelaxedLong weekend · from San Francisco, CA
Napa, Calistoga & Sonoma: Beringer, Hot Springs & the Bear Flag Republic
Three unhurried days through Napa Valley and the Sonoma Valley — the twin wine regions separated by the Mayacamas Range that together produce the wines that humiliated French vintners at the 1976 Paris tasting (the 'Judgment of Paris'). Napa's Beringer Vineyards has operated without interruption since 1876, through Prohibition on a 'medicinal wine' license. The Castello di Amorosa is an authentic Tuscan castle built over 14 years in Calistoga. Sonoma's plaza is the largest historic town square in California — the site of the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846, when American settlers proclaimed a California Republic that lasted 25 days before the US Navy arrived.
Day 1 — Hess Collection Winery (contemporary art + Napa wine), Napa Riverfront, overnight NapaDay 2 — Beringer Vineyards (1876 Rhine House), Castello di Amorosa (107-room Tuscan castle), Calistoga hot springs, overnight CalistogaDay 3 — Sonoma Plaza & Mission (1823, last California mission), Buena Vista Winery (1857), Jack London State Historic Park, return San Francisco
Day 1 — Napa, CA
Day 1 — Napa, CA
🚗 1 hr 55 min driving📍 4 stops
🌅
Morning
🚗
Drive
San Francisco, CA → Oxbow Public Market — Napa, CA
1 hr 30 min8:00 AM → 9:30 AM
Oxbow Public Market — Napa
★ 4.6The best food market in the North Bay — two open market halls on the Napa River filled with independent food vendors: Kara's Cupcakes, Hog Island Oyster Company, Gott's Roadside, Five Dot Ranch Butchers, a wine bar, a spice merchant, and a coffee roaster. The Oxbow opened in 2008 and has become the primary reason to visit downtown Napa beyond the winery circuit. The market complex sits on the Napa River flood management promenade built in 2002 after decades of downtown flooding; the project restored 8 miles of riparian habitat while making the riverfront walkable.
9:30 AM📍 See location
🍽️
Lunch
🚗
Drive
Downtown Napa → Hess Collection Winery — Mount Veeder, CA
25 min10:30 AM → 10:55 AM
Hess Collection Winery & Art Museum
★ 4.6A winery and contemporary art museum on Mount Veeder — Swiss businessman Donald Hess began collecting contemporary art in the 1960s and built a gallery into his 1903 Christian Brothers monastery winery beginning in 1989. The permanent collection runs to 130 works by Francis Bacon, Frank Stella, Robert Motherwell, and a significant group of German and Swiss artists; the building connects the gallery directly to the working winery production areas. The Mount Veeder appellation (higher elevation, volcanic soils, cooler than the valley floor) produces the winery's most distinctive Cabernet Sauvignon.
10:55 AM📍 See location
☀️
Afternoon
Napa Riverfront — Promenade & Culinary Institute
★ 4.5The Napa River Promenade created by the $150-million flood control and riverfront restoration project — brick walkways along both banks of the Napa River through downtown, connecting Oxbow to the Veteran's Park and the Culinary Institute of America at Copia (the CIA's West Coast campus, occupying the former Copia center). The CIA at Copia has a walk-in museum covering food history and culture, demonstration kitchens open for tours, and the Julia's Kitchen restaurant. The afternoon light on the Napa Riverfront is excellent; the promenade walk is the cleanest urban experience in the Napa Valley.
12:00 PM📍 See location
🌙
Evening
Napa River Inn — Downtown Napa
★ 4.5A boutique hotel in the 1884 Hatt Building on the Napa Riverfront — rooms in the historic grain warehouse building overlook the river promenade and the 1874 mill machinery incorporated into the lobby design. The hotel is within walking distance of the Oxbow and the CIA at Copia. Tomorrow's drive north to St. Helena and Calistoga is 45 minutes on CA-29.
5:00 PM📍 See location
Day 2 — Napa Valley North — Calistoga, CA
Day 2 — Napa Valley North — Calistoga, CA
🚗 1 hr driving📍 4 stops
🌅
Morning
🚗
Drive
Napa, CA → Beringer Vineyards — St. Helena, CA
45 min8:00 AM → 8:45 AM
Beringer Vineyards — 1876 Rhine House
★ 4.3The oldest continuously operating winery in Napa Valley — founded in 1876 by German-born brothers Jacob and Frederick Beringer, who modeled the Rhine House (completed 1884) on the family's ancestral home in Mainz, Germany. During Prohibition (1920–1933), Beringer maintained production on a Federal medicinal wine permit — one of the few Napa wineries that never stopped making wine. The winery's hand-dug limestone tunnels (dating from 1876, extending 1,000 feet into the hillside, maintained at 58°F) are used for barrel aging and are among the most historically significant wine-aging caves in the US. The Rhine House is a California Historical Landmark.
8:45 AM📍 See location
🍽️
Lunch
🚗
Drive
Beringer Vineyards, St. Helena → Castello di Amorosa — Calistoga, CA
15 min9:45 AM → 10:00 AM
Castello di Amorosa
★ 4.2A 13th-century Tuscan castle built in Calistoga between 1994 and 2007 — Dario Sattui spent 14 years and $30 million constructing a 107-room medieval fortress using authentic materials: hand-chiseled stone blocks imported from Europe, 850,000 reclaimed bricks, hand-painted Italian ceiling frescoes, and wrought-iron hardware fabricated by a German blacksmith. The building includes a great hall, dungeon, moat bridge, and eight underground cave levels housing barrel rooms. The wines produced in the castle's winery are primarily Italian varietals (Sangiovese, Pinot Grigio) grown on the Napa estate's 171 acres.
10:00 AM📍 See location
☀️
Afternoon
Calistoga Hot Springs & Mud Baths
★ 4.1Calistoga's geothermal springs have been commercially developed since 1859, when Sam Brannan (California's first millionaire) opened a resort on the site — the town's mud bath industry (volcanic ash mud mixed with mineral spring water and peat, at 104°F) has operated continuously since the 1860s. The treatments are distinctly unpretentious compared to the luxury spas elsewhere in Napa: Indian Springs Resort uses the original 1913 pool structure (the oldest thermal pool in California) fed directly from the geothermal wells. The Old Faithful Geyser of California (adjacent to the town) erupts every 30–40 minutes — one of only three 'Old Faithful' geysers in the world.
12:00 PM📍 See location
🌙
Evening
Indian Springs Resort — Calistoga, CA
★ 4.5California's oldest continuously operating resort (1862 original site) — the current Indian Springs property has bungalows and cottage rooms surrounding the 1913 Olympic-size thermal pool, open to guests year-round at a geothermally maintained 102°F. The hot springs feed both the pool and the mud bath treatment building. The property is 3 minutes from Calistoga's main street; the Sam's Social Club restaurant serves California-Italian cooking. Tomorrow's drive to Sonoma takes 45 minutes south via CA-29 and CA-12.
5:00 PM📍 See location
Day 3 — Sonoma Valley — Return to San Francisco
Day 3 — Sonoma Valley — Return to San Francisco
🚗 2 hr 30 min driving📍 3 stops
🌅
Morning
🚗
Drive
Calistoga, CA → Sonoma Plaza — Sonoma, CA
45 min8:00 AM → 8:45 AM
Sonoma State Historic Park — Mission & Bear Flag
★ 4.7Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma (1823) — the northernmost and last of the 21 California missions, founded by Franciscan padre José Altimira and the only California mission established after Mexican independence from Spain. The mission and the adjacent Sonoma Barracks (adobe soldiers' quarters built 1834–1840) form the core of Sonoma State Historic Park. At the Barracks on June 14, 1846, a group of American settlers raised a hand-painted bear flag and declared the California Republic — an independent republic that lasted 25 days before the US Navy arrived on July 9 and raised the American flag. The grizzly bear on the California state flag is derived directly from the 1846 Bear Flag.
8:45 AM📍 See location
🍽️
Lunch
Buena Vista Winery — Sonoma
★ 4.6California's oldest premium winery — founded in 1857 by Colonel Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian immigrant who brought 100,000 vine cuttings of 300 European varietals to California in 1861 to establish the state's wine industry. Haraszthy is credited as the 'father of California wine'; Buena Vista's original stone winery (1857) and the Press House (1862) are among the oldest standing winery buildings in the state. The current operation's tasting room is in the historic Press House, with the original stone caves (hand-dug by Chinese laborers) behind it. The winery is 1.5 miles from the Sonoma Plaza.
9:45 AM📍 See location
☀️
Afternoon
🚗
Drive
Sonoma, CA → Jack London State Historic Park — Glen Ellen, CA
15 min12:00 PM → 12:15 PM
Jack London State Historic Park — Wolf House Ruins
★ 4.8The 1,400-acre Beauty Ranch where Jack London experimented with sustainable agriculture in the last decade of his life (1905–1916) — London purchased the ranch after the success of The Call of the Wild and White Fang and spent years developing innovative farm practices (contour plowing, composting, pig raising) that predated the sustainable agriculture movement by 50 years. The centerpiece of the state park is the ruins of Wolf House — a 26-room stone mansion that burned four days before London was to move in (August 22, 1913), under circumstances never explained. The roofless stone walls and chimneys remain in the forest, occupied by ferns and mosses.
12:15 PM📍 See location
🌙
Evening
🚗
Drive
Glen Ellen / Sonoma, CA → San Francisco, CA
1 hr 30 min5:00 PM → 6:30 PM
Plan your own escapeExplore more trips →