Yountville, Napa Valley

One of our main reasons for visiting Napa Valley was to take the hot air balloon ride* that we couldn't fit into our schedule last year in the two weeks when we celebrate our birthdays and wedding anniversary.  Napa Valley Aloft, the company we picked for the ride, is headquartered in Yountville. The town is north of Napa and centrally located for touring the valley which we also planned to do.

* The hot air balloon ride gets its own blog post.

Yountville (rhymes wth count) - its business is tourism.

It's namesake was an orignal Napa Valley settler

V Marketplace (for shopping, of course) right next door to where we stayed.
(I found the gourmet chocolates place.)

Repurposed old depot building (another place to buy stuff).

The entrance to the Railway Inn where we stayed

The suites are renovated railroad cars - now you know why we had to stay here.

At the side entrance

Corridor between the two rows of suites

We ate our take-out lunch here one afternoon.

We stayed in suite #5 - a nice coincidence with our 05/05 anniversary date.

Very comfortable king size bed

Nifty old chest of drawers

Note the picture - a hot air balloon over the valley.  They know their clientele.

The skylight was a welcome touch

Yountville has more art installations than I could count.  But I think I got photos of most of them.

Lots of natural beauty, too, including grape vines.

California state flag on the left

Rose bush from the 1920's

Erick checks out the artichoke plants

Yountville buildings are a mix of old and new.

Impressive vines.  We had dinner here our first evening in Yountville.

Library and Community Center

The French Laundry - a historical building that now houses a restauant.

We had dinner here the last evening we were in town

Inside Bistro Jeanty

With Yountville as our anchor point, we were off to explore the Napa Valley.

Next up: Exploring Napa Valley, Part 1