My wife and I are a planning a 4-5 day trip to Napa/Sonoma area in late September/early October. Never have been there. We have traveled extensively in Tuscany and other Italian locales and have decided to give our own wine treasure a visit.

Thinking of a budget of about $500 per night for lodging. No B & B's, but small to mid-sized inns or lodges would be great. We plan on just doing a lot of day-tripping to wineries and otherwise enjoying the sights. Any suggestions for especially great restaurants(don't have to be fancy...the food and atmosphere are most important),or activities would be most welcome in addition to lodging suggestions.

Thanks so much in advance!

You are planning to be there during the grape crush. It will be VERY busy and lodgings hard to come by. I would suggest that you put the lodging request over on the Napa forum on the California forum of Trip Advisor. There are many locals there who can give you some good advice on this. You will need to reserve right away.

Good luck.

Thanks so much, will do!!

Along with jt's good advice-do a search here-there are zillions of postings (and arguments )
especially on food-when you have narrowed your choices down come back with more specific questions.

Here's a start for lodging:
In/near Sonoma town:
MacArthur Place
Kenwood Inn
Gaige House

Healdsburg:
Hotel Les Mars
Madronna Manor

St. Helena:
Inn at Southbridge

Dining:
Healdsburg-
Zin
Willi's
Madronna Manor
Cyrus

In/ Near Sonoma town
Harvest Moon
Carneros Bistro
Kenwood Restaurant
Glen Ellen Inn

St. Helena
Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen
Terra
Martini House
Go Fish

Yountville
Ad Hoc
Hurleys
Bistro Jeanty
Bistro Don Giovanni
(south of Yountville)

That should get your research started !

R5

Dont miss Cyrus, we just dined there past March, it is in Healdsburg. Check out the Hotel Le Mars, Cyrus is adjacent to this boutique hotel, I had a tour of the rooms, they are very nice! ***kim***

If you want the full winery experience, several wineries have places you can stay, on site. In addition, if you tend to favor Italian varietals, check out www.wineloverspage.com/italwineguide & http://www.cheers2wine.com/.

We can highly recommend the Applewood Inn outside of Healdsburg. It's in the Russian River Valley area which is much less crowded than Napa. It's also an easy drive to Sonoma and to the coast. Napa is doable from there as well.

I agree with Madrona Manor http://madronamanor.com/ for fabulous lodging & dining.

Also http://www.macarthurplace.com/ in the town of Sonoma.

Start looking & booking now for lodging.

bookmarking

If you can make your 4-5 days weekdays rather than weekend days you'll find it's much less crowded. We were there last year from Sept. 30-Oct 3 (Tuesday-Friday) and the crowds weren't bad at all.

KathyK: I doubt the OP is still looking for advice since they were probably there the same days you were. He posted this last May for a trip last Sept/Oct.

(JES topped this old thread to "bookmark" it - which sent a current thread down off page one and into oblivion)