Sonoma, CA - Wednesday 16 October

Drove down from Auburn to Sonoma today. According to the Lonely Planet guide to California, if you only have time to visit one of the two "wine country" valleys in this area (Napa and Sonoma), this is the one.

I attended a wine tasting and was sufficiently impressed to be talked into buying a couple of rather expensive bottles. Here's hoping I get them back to the UK intact - they'll need to wait for a special occasion, but I can see why this area is famed for producing some of the best wine in the world (and I certainly drove past enough vineyards this week).

I'm staying at the charmingly retro El Pueblo Inn, which is a motel, but very classy with a pool and some nice gardens in the middle. The packet loss on the WiFi (50%) is bad enough that you won't see this post until a day later, but other than that it's very decent (good breakfast, too).