The third day dawned quite grey and misty. Our plan was to visit Muir Woods. After having breakfast, we collected our hire car. My husband offered to be the first driver, which was a very brave decision. Driving an unknown car up and down the hills of San Francisco to collect our cases from the hotel was no mean feat. However he did a great job and we drove across a very murky Golden Gate Bridge and along the road north.

Unfortunately by the time we had done the short drive to Muir Woods it was raining quite hard and was even foggier. We decided that we would not see very much and didn’t really think there would be much pleasure from wandering around in the rain so we decided to start heading on our route southwards.

Capitola Beach

A few weeks ago someone told us that a really good place to stop on route would be a small town called Capitola. As we arrived it had brightened up a little bit. We were so impressed by Capitola.

It is a small quaint town with a beautiful beach, some unusual shops and some very quirky and pretty beach houses. We had some lunch and a wander around, completing our visit by walking along the pier.

This was somewhere that we would have probably missed and just passed by if we had not known about it, so it was great to be given the heads-up and to see such a lovely place, before driving on to our destination for the night.

Monterey

Our stop over for the next two nights was Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa. What an absolutely stunning hotel. The rooms were enormous and the views from the patio area were out of this world.

After checking into our rooms, we went out for a walk along to Fisherman’s Wharfe. This was more how I’d imagined a wharfe to look rather than the busy and commercial Fisherman’s Wharfe in San Francisco. It was a combination of restaurants and shops, but not too touristy.

We had a beautiful meal at Domenicos on the Wharfe. This is mainly a seafood reastaraunt. The food was absolutely amazing. Afterwards we had a short walk back to the hotel, sat by the fire pit on the patio for a short while, before going to bed.