Bay Area Adventures- A Sunday In Mountain View
/ LaurenMountain View, it's more than Google campus!
Between San Jose and San Francisco, the leafy and quaint Mountain Vew lays tucked away just off US-101 and Central Expressway. It's downtown area, served by a main artery in the form of Castro St., is perfect for a leisurely weekend stroll. I like coming on Sunday, when the Farmers Market is in full swing.
Situated in the back end of the CalTrain parking lot, you can find the best of in season produce, fresh pastas, baked goods, and hummus to take home from beloved local shop Oren's.
Just around the corner from the market is Alexander's Patisserie , a chic French style bakery that serves seriously good canele and exquisite kouign aman.
Up the street another block is Books Inc., a charming little bookstore with a pretty great Travel section and cafe upstairs.
There's not one but two gelato shops right near each other, a few pubs, some great Italian pizzaria, and one of my favorites, Stein's. With an impressive beer list, great brunch menu and hot pretzels with a house made beer mustard to die for, it's no wonder it's a hugely popular local spot.
So if you're visiting the area and want to explore a quieter offshoot of San Francisco, Mountain View is an easy train ride or drive and well worth the visit.
Manufactured spend. Churning cards. Sign up for X card for Y bonus miles. The game of leveraging mileage earn and using miles is known as "The Hobby" to travel hackers worldwide. Countless travel blogs will cite card deals or best cards to sign up for (that they usually get an affiliate cut from) or ways to fake spend to meet card spend minimums for miles, promote mileage buying deals, etc. etc. For the past two years I've drank the Kool-Aid the Hobby is often serving and while it did get me a reduced cost trip to England and a few other places, it also helped put me into $20k of credit debt.
I had asked on Instagram what followers would like to see as travel topics for future IG Stories, and my friend Marni of the excellent baking blog Happy Go Marni commented she would love to see the topic of how to pack light and feel like you have all the things you need. So naturally, as this topic is near and dear to me, I jumped on it and thought not only would it be great for a quick IG Story, but also a great blog post.
We arrived after our brief Alpine adventure to Munich, staying at Schiller5 Hotel, a rather great and affordable option on a side street across from the main train station in an area that is, frankly, not great. It's just a bit shabby and a bit too modern is a brutally ugly way. But needs (and budgets) must and despite the neighborhood not being utterly idyllic, the hotel itself was really nice and the staff really friendly. So if you're looking for budget, convenience to public transport (which LOL WE WILL GET TO IN A BIT), but without sacrificing quality, then Schiller5 is a good bet.
Anyways, I'm not sure what I expected of fair München. Maybe it was being based in a less historical, kind of iffy neighborhood. Maybe it was that Rothenberg, Heidelberg, and the Alps were so freaking charming and quaint, but I found myself a bit disenchanted with Munich, maybe unfairly so.
We departed lovely Rothenberg after a brief overnight and decided to help for the Alps to go look at the very famous Neuwanschtein Castle. My bestie is a big Disney fan, so really, when in Germany...you take the Romantic Road there of course! Maybe it's hyped up marketing, maybe it's cliched, but I liked the drive as we buzzed along surface roads and took a break from the Autobahn.
I have longed to go to Rothenberg ob der Tauber for a very long time, mostly due to a single image of a beautifully quaint little yellow house set against what looked to be a village straight out of a storybook.
It was, literally, planes, trains, and automobiles for me to get from San Francisco to Heidelberg. After some mixups with Air Berlin where they had eliminated a leg in my outbound itinerary and never actually told me, I changed my routing and instead of landing in Frankfurt and taking an easy train ride or hour-long shuttle, I ended up landing in Dusseldorf and taking 3 train connections without a seat. Fun times!
But getting to Heidelberg was worth it. Once I got to the main station and on the bus taking me the short drive over to the Aldstadt area, I was pleased to find the routing takes you along the Neckar River. Once I got off the bus, I was in love.
I went to Germany for the first in the end of May, visiting the college town of Heidelberg, the super charming, fairy-tale town of Rothenberg ob der Tauber, a quick afternoon on the Romantic Road down to Schwangau, and then ending in Munich. I wasn't sure what to expect from Germany, and a few very minor language barrier issues and my awful pronunciation of käse aside, Germany proved to be pretty incredible although not without a few frustrations with some rental car woes (always check if there's a deposit hold when using a debit card and always take photo and video of where you parked when you return the car). But that aside, me and my best friend saw and experienced some awesome things.
Lately life has been so busy that it's felt a bit like struggling to keep my head above water. So when feels like they're drowning with the everyday pressures of life, what better way to destress than take a plunge under the sea? I don't know about you, but it's hard to be completely full of despair in the face of otters being cute and adorable.
Disneyland's first Festival of Holidays is well underway and appearing at California Adventure through January 8th. As a fan of Epcot Food & Wine at Disney World, I wanted to see how these holiday booth small plate offerings compared to the ones at International Showcase.
There are 14 booths featured in the festival, all with different holiday-themed foods and some featuring special cocktails and wines. They're laid out over one stretch of walkway just past the entrance of California Adventure as you walk towards the direction of Paradise Pier. And don't worry, a big sign for the event will make sure you know where it is.
So is this new offering a success? Well.....yes and no. Disneyland has some things they need to tweak if they want to do future holiday festivals like this. But first, the food.
Europe is a continent well-connected by train, making it easy to hop from city to city or country to country. Between IC trains, locals, high-speed rail or Eurostar trains, you'll find yourself fairly spoiled for choice when it comes to riding the rails. It's also a great way to catch the scenery if you aren't in a massive hurry.
That being said, if you've never travelled by rail in Europe before and embark on this adventure, there's one quick tip I wanted to share that seems so simple on paper but can be totally overlooked.