Where to Stay

Of the millions of tourists traveling through Napa Valley every year, there are some who naturally want to stay for a day or two. The valley's lodgings stand ready, as graceful, pleasant, and varied as its wines. The first question one needs to ask oneself is whether to stay in a hotel or a bed and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts aren't for everyone: for better or worse, you are staying in a home. There may be chocolates and milk at bedtime, but the floorboards can squeak. There are, however, more B&Bs than hotels and motels, especially when you get outside the city of Napa and go up-valley.

Napa

If one wants their hotel to reflect a bit of the region's character and history, Napa's Old World Inn is a good example: built in 1906, its color scheme is a hyper-Victorian pink, violet, blue and mint green. Of the larger bed and breakfasts, La Residence Country Inn with 16 rooms, and Blue Violet Mansion with 17 rooms are two of the more popular.

Yountville

For something truly one-of-a-kind, try Napa Valley Railway Inn, a complex of nine restored railway cars arranged around a central platform and station house. Unimpressed by those kinds of bells and whistles? Yountville's Napa Valley Lodge lays out complimentary champagne breakfasts.

St. Helena

If part of your attraction to bed and breakfasts is to escape the suffocating, corporate sameness of hotel chains, you would do well to try the Ambrose Bierce House. Bierce, author of the Devil's Dictionary, was famed for writing ghost stories, being a misanthrope, and disappearing mysteriously and permanently into Mexico. And this is indeed his house. There's nothing at all spooky about the lovely St. Helena three-room B&B, however, and the hosts aren't the least bit misanthropic.

Calistoga

Another vintage hostelry that tend towards the quirky is the creaky-floored Calistoga Inn, straight out of the Old West and perched atop a microbrewery. The nearby Pink Mansion rated a mention in Wine Spectator.