I'm taking my 16-year old to Berkeley for a few days of Spring Break. She's into theater, literature, political activism, hiking, music (especially Celtic). We like to stay in nice but not necessarily fancy places so we can be more like travelers and less like tourists. We would love suggestions about any lodging, food, farmers markets, and other happenings this week (April 5-9) especially in regard to above interests.

Thanks alot.
christy

You can check SFgate.com for happenings. Also BayArea.com

A couple of ideas.

Farmers markets: There's one right in downtown Berkeley on Saturday mornings and Tuesday afternoons. http://www.ecologycenter.org/farmers...ers_mrkts.html
There are others in Oakland, and there's a huge upscale one at the Ferry Building in SF several days a week (take BART to Embarcadero): http://www.ferryplazafarmersmarket.com/

Theatre: Berkeley Repertory Company is great. www.berkeleyrep.org

Literature: Near campus, Cody's is a great independent bookstore with lots of readings, but none during that time. Still, it's good for shopping. www.codysbooks.com. Almost next door is a huge used bookstore, Moe's. In North Berkeley, Black Oak Books has a good new and used literature selection and readings. www.blackoakbooks.com.

The East Bay Express, the local giveway paper, comes out on Wednesdays and has entertainment listings on line. www.eastbayexpress.com


That's a start, anyway.

Almost forgot the music part. Well, I don't know of any big Celtic stuff on those dates, but you can check out the Freight & Salvage, a venerable coffehouse (www.thefreight.org), and the Ashkenaz, a world music dance club.

The biggest question is whether you will have a car. Berkeley Lodging pretty well excludes all the big name chains. I would not stay in any hotel on University Avenue. Instead, there is the Beau Skye hotel on Durant street, which might be noisy but would be right smack in the thick of things. Ditto with the Bancroft hotel. The Berkeley City Club also lets rooms, that's a quieter location, but still close to downtown. For each of the above locations, a car will be a liability in terms of trying to find a place to park it, unless the hotel offers parking.

For entertainment KT hit most of the links that I could think of.

Here is a link to the readings at Black Oak books: http://www.blackoakbooks.com/calendar.html. The only other place I can think of is the Starry Plough, but I don't know if that venue is all ages.

Berkeley overflows with food. The variety is astounding. Particularly good bets are: Curry N Naan on Telegraph for cheap cash only Indian food. Farther down Telegraph is the Blue Nile, Ethiopian food you eat with your hands. Barneys (burgers & salads) and Zachary's are Berkeley institutions.

Here is a link to all of the GOOD sit down restuarants in Berkeley.

http://www-rnc.lbl.gov/Restaurants/

Tilden Regional Park is in the Berkeley hills. I believe you can catch a city bus to get there. Here is a link with a map and more information: http://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden.htm