San Francisco with Olivier

Our Napa tour ended on Monday with a visit in San Francisco. We parked the car on the Marin side of the Golden Gate. After crossing the bridge by bike, we visited the new Academy of Sciences (located in the Golden Gate Park). The museum reopened a month ago, with a new planetarium, a rain forest and a striking architecture including a "garden roof"... Quite interesting. Our day ended with a beautiful sunset while crossing the bridge back to the car.

For his last day in California, Olivier and I visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Moma) and the Yerba Buena Gardens. The kids' play garden near the Moma is impressive: as always, Americans are experts in designing pedagogically interesting material for kids.

Goéric hopped on the Caltrain to join us in the evening for our traditional sushi dinner at Kabuto! And then it was already time for Olivier to pack his luggage...

Marie

Olivier in California

Hi all,

My brother came to visit us again! It's always very nice to have visitors, which are unfortunately quite rare :-(

He started his Californian tour with a few days in San Diego where two of his friends/colleagues had a conference. He visited the zoo, SeaWorld, as well as the UCSD campus and the Salk Institute in La Jolla. (If you want to see Goéric's old pictures of the Institute, click here.)

Last week-end we all went to Napa Valley. Beverly, my "American mom", had kindly reserved her condo there for us! We took a detour via Point Reyes, to show the lighthouse to Olivier. On Sunday we enjoyed a VERY long bike ride through the vineyards: from the resort to Calistoga, and back (total = 87km!). The landscape was beautiful, with the autumnal colors of the leaves. We managed to get a quick lunch in Calistoga before literally speeding back to be on time for a winery tour. Again thanks to Beverly, we had a private tour of the Rudd winery, as well as a delightful wine tasting! It was a great experience. And after such a long day, the hot tub and swimming pool in the resort were more than welcome :-)

Marie