I'll be visiting the Redwood city/Palo Alto,California area this weekend for business and wondered if anyone was from that area. I need some ideas of things to do in the area. We plan to head over to San Fransisco, but I would also like to do some stuff closer to where we will be staying. Anybody know the area?

Thanks

 

You might try posting this in the No Cal Regional forum. I know there are a few MINI clubs through the area.

 

I am moving this thread to the REME forum, where you'll get more response to your questions.

 

Thanks, I wasn't sure where to post it.

I actually won't have my mini with me. I'm just flying in to measure a job so I'm looking for non-mini things to do. Unless someone wants to meet me and trade me their mini/MINI for my rental car for the day!

 

I'm from around the bay, Palo Alto has a lot of really nice restaurants, a nice outdoor mall, and a lot of like art galleries and upscale type stuff. Don't know as much around Redwood City. If you're looking for places to drive, there's plenty of that around too, I'm sure someone can help you out there.

 

Whether you have your Mini or not, you need to get with the folks in that area. Posting it in OT wasn't going to help! LOL!

A bunch of Californians are going to AMVIV-3 this weekend. But I'm sure they can advise you on some fun things to do while you visit.

 

Lots of good food as someone had mentioned. Check out downtown Palo Alto and the Stanford campus. Also, go to Menlo Park, Santa Cruz Ave....a little Bistro called Vida for dinner. It is wonderful.

 

Yeah, it sounds like the restaraunts are great. Anyone been to the Stanford theatre? Sounds like fun seeing one of those old movies there. Would driving into downtown San Fran on saturday be crazy busy? Are there certain times of the day to avoid?

 

What I might suggest is to go into San Francisco Saturday morning and spend part or all of the day there. Start in the morning at the beautifully restored Ferry Building, which has become one of the food meccas of the Bay Area. It has a Saturday morning gourmet food farmer's market that is always great fun. Close to the Ferry Building is the Yank Sing Restaurant where you can have a great dim sum lunch. Also from the Ferry Building, you can ride the cable car ride up to *** Hill and walk to Chinatown. You'd also be at a convenient location to get to some of the landmarks such as Coit Tower, Lombard Street, and Golden Gate Bridge.

Are there particular things you want to do, such as dining, shopping, sightseeing or museums?

 

You know, it's going to be quite a quick trip, so we won't be able to do as much as we would like, but we thought a little shopping down on the pier and actually what you mentioned(cable car,chinatown,etc.) would be perfect.

Here's the plan so far:
Thursday night- fly into Oakland, drive to Redwood city.
Friday- Do the whole job/work thing then dinner at ? in Palo Alto and a movie at Stanford theatre.
Saturday-drive to San Fran,do the whole touristy thing
Sun-Head back home

 

There are so many things, it really is hard to cover them all.

San Francisco is a nice city. A bit big to walk, and parking's a *****. I personally don't do the warf thing, as it's becoming a bit of a tourist trap area.

I live about half way between SF and SJ, in the hills above Redwood city. Let me know what interests you, and I'd be happy to point stuff out.

The Stanford Theatre is great, it's been wonderfully restored, and it's got a wonderful organ with a real organist. There are TONS of restaurants, so you can just go there, and wander University Avenue, and find something that suits your fancy.

Matt

 

Hey Dr, I'm going to be right in your neighborhood! I'll be working on a house in Atherton.

 

From Atherton, you can drive up Woodside Rd (Hiway 84) to Skyline Blvd (35). Alices Restaurant is there, and a good place for breakfast/lunch. If the weather is good, you'll see a hundred or so motorcycles there, as it's a great meeting place for rides. You can then head south on Skyline (one beautiful road), to Thomas Fogerty Winery (3-5 miles), and stop in there, depending on how early you go (I don't know when they open). They have a deck with panaramic views of the bay. You can keep heading south to the Page Mill Road intersection, head west, and go through Pescadero (nice little town, Duart's Tavern has excellent local pies, and really good bloody marys!), and head a little further west, you'll hit Hiway 1 at Pescadero St Beach. This beach has some great tide-pools!

If you don't want to taste wine so early in the day, head west on 84 (Woodside or LaHonda Rd, it goes by both names) to San Gregorio State Beach. Right after you leave Alice's (little town of Skylonda), you'll hit some of the best S turns ever created by a state hiway department! Watch out, as there's been some movement of the road bed in a couple places (right after a big red barn) and the Bump signs mean Bump! San Gregorio is a better beach for walking on the sand, and if you're cheap like me, you can aviod the parking fees by parking at the end of 84 and walking over.

North is Half-Moon Bay, a nice little town, good food, and nice little shops. You can go farther north (just a bit) and on the west side of 1 there are some great seafood places, I don't remember the name of the road, but it's by the Half Moon Bay harbor.

If you go south, the drive is spectacular as well, stop by pidgeon point light house for a few minutes, and then keep going south. I don't remember the exact roads, but head east when you're past Davenport, a bit north of Santa Cruz, and go through Felton into Big Basin State Park, This is a redwood tree park, and it's really amazing, especially for those that aren't used to redwoods. They aren't quite as big as the giant sequoias (some have branches larger than any tree east of the Mississippi!) but impressive none the less. Keep heading east and you'll get on Highway 9 and hit Skyline again.

From there, you can either head north on Skyline to go back to 84, or stay on 9 and go down into Saratoga. Great food in Saratoga. Then you're back in the real world and the flat-lands of the bay, and you'd wander to 280, and take that north back to redwood city.

If you want to take the whole weekend, you can stay in Santa Cruz or any place around there. Aptos and Capitola are very nice little towns a bit south of Santa Cruz as well.

I think that would be a much more satifying day, but then, I take SF the city for granted, the parking and crowds are really pissing me off, but that's because I'm getting older and more crochety! If you do want to see SF, don't just drift around, as you'll just sit in frustrating traffic, but target a few things and make sure you hit them. Some possible highlights:
Lombard Street, just to say you did.
Cable Car to Girhadelli Square area.
Shopping at Union Square.
Food all over.
The natural history museum in Golden Gate Park.
The Cliff House.
Japanese Tea Gardens.
The DeYoung Museum
And my personal favorite, drive over the GG bridge, and take the first exist on the right when you cross over (not the parking lot, the one after). Go back under 101, and go up the hills. It's steep, and there are places to park where you can be at about the level of the tops of the towers of the bridge, or above. The views are to die for, and other than toll, it's free. If you're really ambitions, you can keep going on these roads, and go out to Pt Rays, there's great seafood on the way, and as you get up to the bays, the oysters just get better and better.

I guess from what I've written, you know what I'd do, but I've been to SF before.....

Spend some time researching the various points of interest, and have a really fun weekend.

Matt

ps, if I get better (I"m fighting off a sickness), I'll be in Vegas, otherwise I'd be happy to team up for a weekend of lesiure!

 

Skyline is a great driving road, at night the city looks gorgeous from the lookouts on the hill. Just be warned, the Saratoga side has a bit of construction at the moment, nothing to major, but one side of the two lanes is closed down.

 

A few notes: the natural history museum in Golden Gate Park (California Academy of Sciences) was demolished and being rebuilt, and has a temporary location near the Moscone Convention Center. The DeYoung Museum (art) was also demolished and recently reopened with an architecturally significant new building. On the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge where Matt descibes the freeway exit, at the same exit you can also head the other direction down the hill into Sausilito, which is a picturesque though touristy town of upscale shops. There is also a ferry that runs between the Ferry Building (I mentioned earlier) and Sausilito. On a nice day, it is worthwhile to take the ferry ride. On your Friday night, downtown Palo Alto is a good place to walk around and have dinner. It is somewhat of a "destination" in the local area for groups going out to dine and hang out. BTW, I used to live a few blocks from downtown Palo Alto, and now live in San Francisco. In San Francisco, avoid Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, which are full of tacky tourist shops. The Ghirardelli Square/Aquatic Park/Cannery area is fine to visit and walk around.

 

71COOP is going to need a longer stay!

Matt

Oh yeah, if you do the hills drive, and have the time, go by Ridge Winery on Montebello Rd. You can get to it off highway 9, some of the very best reds in the world! They're open 11-4 on weekends.

 

No doubt! I wish I could stay for a week or so and do all that has been suggested.
The roads around there sound like fun. Too bad I'll be sporting something like a sebring or malibu rent-a-turd Not quite the same as my mini!
Dr, are you going to AMVIV? Or are you still sick?

 

So I'll be away. The drives are fun, no matter what you have. But whatever you do, you'll have a taste of the area.

Enjoy....

Matt

 

Former Silicone Valley resident here -- Ditto everything the Dr. said, especially the drives in the hills!

If you want to stay closer to town, there's always shopping at the Stanford shopping center, or in some of the chi chi old downtowns (Palo Alto, Los Gatos etc.) . If you're into gardening, there's the Sunset Magazine gardens, Gamble House (a nice public garden near Stanford) and Filoli gardens (http://www.filoli.org/visitor_gen.html). If you like nature walks, there are great salt marshes on the bay http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BAYTRAIL23.DTL, and a beach with good tidepools out Half Moon Bay way.

Have a great time!

 

And what did you like/dislike?

Matt

 

I'm very jealous of you guys in the Bay area! You have some great roads to go cruizing around on. We had a great time while there.

We stayed in Redwood city since it was close to the house I was working on in Atherton. The first thing I noticed was how fun the little backroads were. We "upgraded" our Taurus to a Charger which was actually a pretty fun car for having only the base engine. Friday night, we went down to Palo Alto(passing the Ferrari/Maserati dealership on the way ) and had Noodles at "Zao Noodle Bar" on University. We need one of those in Salt Lake! Mmmmmm. Then we took in "Swing Time" at the Stanford theatre. I'm not one for musicals or anything without car chases, crude humor, or explosions , but this was really fun. The guy playing the organ, the beautifully restored theatre, and the witty humor of the old movie were great. I may just have to watch something out of my "genre" a little more often!

Saturday, we hooked up with my aunt and uncle who are living in San Mateo and they took us to Twin Peaks to get a good overall view of the San Fran area. Then we went across the GG bridge and viewed the city from the view point there. If it weren't for the hurricane force winds we would have stayed a little longer and snap a few more photo's. By then, we needed lunch and headed to In and Out. That's another place we need in Salt Lake!

We then took off on our own and headed into town, down through Crissy Field and into the Wharf area and up to Lombard street. We lucked out and only had to wait for a couple cars before going down. What a fun street!

We then parked and took the "Muni" train/trolley over to the Ferry building. We checked out the some of the art in the market and then decided we needed some walking and huffed it up to China Town. From there, we decided to walk down Columbus street back down to the Wharf, stopping at some cool little shops along the way. By then, our feet were bloody stumps and we finished up with dinner on the pier. On the way back, just about ready to jump on the 101, there was Mini of San Fran.

Unfortunately, Sunday didn't leave us any time to do much more than grab Starbucks and head to the airport. It was a fun quick trip. It turned out that it was actually warmer back home than it was where we were. Oh well. You guys have a great area there. If it wasn't so bloody expensive to live there, I think I could be happy with a little place in the hills of Atherton.

Here are a couple of photos

 

if you really want to drive on great roads, next time you are here, head north of the Golden Gate... our roads can not be beat!

good luck saving for Atherton....