Anna found this place on Yelp. She had everything mapped and direction-ed. We followed the directions precisely to get us to 1126 1st Avenue in Napa. Well, actually, 1126 did not exist and all we saw was empty area between 1120 and 1140. It was also in the middle of nowhere... just bunch of residential houses nearby. Did we take a wrong turn somewhere? I swear that I followed the direction correctly... [Anna's Note: I would've driven INTO the house... and demanded breakfast.]

Fortunately, Anna had a backup plan (another restaurant). So we decided to go there instead... and when we got back to downtown area and located that second restaurant, we noticed that it's awfully close to 1st Street. Ding! All kinds of lightbulbs went on in my head and we realized that Yelp had incorrect address (which seems to be fixed now btw). When we got there, we were chatting it up with the employee and we told him of our journey. Then he asked "did you guys find us on Yelp?". Anna nodded. Then he goes on to say "Yea! I had couple of people call yesterday and say 'we are on first, but we can't find you'..." [Anna's Note: I could've called too! I had the number! See? I'm prepared!]

I sipped on complimentary coffee while waiting for the food. Being the breakfast-food junky that I am, I liked my breakfast there. Sure, the food may not have been the best, but I definitely liked the place because of the local-ish setting feel that I get. [Anna's Note: I liked my omlette... although my advocadoes were missing... and there was no cheese. Er HEM.] Anna found a cool sign that she liked inside the restaurant:

After we finished our delicious breakfast, we were off to Lake Berryessa for some hiking. According to the directions, we were supposed to look for "two silver gates". Well, we didn't see these so-called silver gates and ended up going past the place we were supposed to park. I only figured this out because we crossed county lines that we shouldn't have crossed. So we basically guessed the area we were supposed to park and followed a trail that led out of the area. We asked a lady who seemed to have just come down from the hiking trip if we were going to the right place. She said yes and gave us more information... like it's 4-5 miles, 1500 foot elevation gain, and that we'll have good views along the way. [Anna's Note: Pant, pant, pant...]

When we got to the starting point of the trail, we finally saw the silver gate. There is no way that we could've spotted this when we were driving.. it was so deep into the hill from where the road was... not to mention that it's one of those "ghetto" ones that you typically don't picture in your head when you hear the word "gate". [Anna's note: It's still a gate... albeit not a very... visible one.]

On our way up, we ran into some people with doggies... awww, I thought that maybe we can do a same thing in the future.

When we neared the top, we got great views of Lake Berryessa. On a less exciting note, we also caught a glimpse of what I figured to be Sacramento (because the area had some buildings [Anna's Note: Or the lack thereof.]) Here's a mini panorama of the view:

Some parts of the trail had rocks like this one:

And some parts of the trail was muddy, especially in shady area. In order to avoid this, we decided to go down on a "shortcut" route. Actually, that was the official trail before, but the park services people closed it off and made a very loopy, theme-park wait line style trail. So if you took the now-closed shortcut, you would go straight down. Ironically, when going down this trail, Anna slipped and fell anyway. Luckily, it was just dirt area, so she wasn't hurt. [Anna's Note: Admittedly, it cut our trip down by a lot. Good call!]

When we got down to the car, we had a short picnic-ish lunch to satisfy our hunger. It turns out that we bought way more food than we needed... we didn't even eat half of the stuff we brought. Of course, we promptly finished the food as dinner later that day. [Anna's Note: Better more than less!  And... at least we're prepared if we get stuck somewhere!]  Then I drove us to the next destination... some pictures that Anna took (yay for the convertible!) [Anna's Note: Pop-up eyes!!] :

We both had to go to the restroom... so we stopped at Lake Hennessey briefly:

After taking care of the business, we were off to Castle di Amorosa, which is a castle/winery. Anna made a reservation for 4pm, and we got there about 20 minutes prior. Perfect timing!
Entrance:

There it is!:

When we go to the concierge area, there was some problem/confusion about the fee. Anna thought that she made a reservation at 4pm to do a wine-tasting (which is supposed to cost $10). However, it turns out that you don't need to make a reservation for wine-tasting... and that reservation was only for the tour (which does include wine-tasting), which costs $30 per person. The lady informed us that she'll have to charge us $25 for the hold, so after some debate, we decided to just do the tour for a total cost of $60. [Anna's Note: So expensive!]

The tour started in the church area of the castle:

Oooh, here is the fascinating story about this castle...

Do you see all those rocks? They were all shipped from Italy on one of those container ships. Not only that, every rock was hand-chiseled by people, also from Italy. Each rock apparently took 2.5 hours. It took 14 years to build this castle. The import doesn't stop there. Everything, from rocks to fixtures to wine barrels, was imported from Italy. The tour guide himself was also imported! haha! [Anna's Note: The guests aren't imported! Oh wait... yea we are... but not from Italy.]

Here is a picture of closed-off window:

The guide told us that this was done to avoid paying taxes. Apparently, there was a time when taxes on the building were imposed based on how many windows the structure had. So, to pay less tax, they shut off all the windows. True story? I have no idea~ [Anna's Note: Of course it's true! Tour guide's don't lie! :-p]

The castle also had a torture chamber, with the most striking element being this one. Can you see all the spikes?

We took a path underground with many many many barrels of wine on the side. The path ultimately led us to this 12,000 square feet room that had even more barrels of wine. The guide actually gave us a sample of two-months old wine, straight out of the barrel. He said that it'll serve as a good comparison to what we'll be tasting later at the end of the tour. [Anna's Note: Nasty!!]

After that, we went to a knight room that had vaulted ceilings. I didn't get a picture of this, but you can stand in these spots and say something, and you'll hear it echo (but just yourself though). It was quite trippy actually. Also, you can talk to a wall and have the other person hear it on the other end. Kinda like that exhibit at the Exploratorium.

As part of the tour, we got to sample five different wines plus couple dessert wines. The wine tasting experience was fun... I mean, I've never done it before. Not that I'm an expert on wine, but I could tell the difference between several wines we tried. In the end, I purchased a dessert wine for Anna because it was her favorite out of everything we tried. [Anna's Note: Expensive too... $27?!]

It was very packed day. It was really a beautiful trip, after all. Anna spent a lot of time figuring out all the logistics, getting all materials ready, and etc, while studying for her class and working full time. I truly appreciate everything she has done to make this trip happen and run without a hitch (well, minus that Yelp error haha). So here, I would like to thank her one more time. [Anna's Note: You're welcomed! Who's planning the 3rd?]

I love you.