What to do in California, It's all Andy's fault Options

[FlatSix]

To cut a very long story short...

The post by Andy saying he'd been out driving in his 914 and got sunburn, numerous other threads saying how winter sucks etc.

Well, I've booked a ticket and am flying out to LA on Thursday. I'm staying with a friend of mine near san Diego next weekend and leaving there on the morning of Monday 9th.

My plane leave San Francisco on Friday 13th so I have a few days to see California.

So my questions are:
What 914 places should I visit?
Where should I stay in San Francisco (there is a budget!)
Does anyone want to meet up for a beer (or two) at a hooters. I've just got to visit... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

Andy

[fiid]

Here is a list of stuff I would recommend - I doubt you can see all of it.

I don't know LA very well, but it's fun to see the chinese theatre, and there are some great art museums if you are in to that. The Getty is fantastic, probably more interesting for the architecture and design of the museum than the pieces it houses (if you've been to an english stately home, you've seen a lot of it before!)

Moving up the coast, if you are going to drive from LA to SF, you should visit the former home of William Randolf Hearst - known as Heart Castle. It is a magical and wierd place; he collected lots of historical artifacts from all over the world and made a house decorated with them (and designed with them in mind).

Once you are there, you should drive the Pacific Coast Highway from there up to Carmel and Monterey, and take a look around. Carmel is a pretty little redwoody town with nice shops and restaurants. In Monterey bay is a super deeeeeep ocean trench (it's almost as deep as the hell hole) so the aquarium there has lots of really interesting and wierd pacific sea life.

I then recommend visiting Santa Cruz (which I recently learned is where the Lost Boys was filmed :-) ).

After Santa Cruz, I would visit the Bonny Doon vineyard (famous for their desert wine "Vin de Glaciere" and other wierd wines, including their Fromboise) in the Santa Cruz hills, and then the David Bruce (Famous for Pinot Noir) winery, followed by a jaunt up skyline drive - take woodside to 101 and you can visit Rich Bontempi, and Brad at High Performance House before tearing up to San Fran on either 280 or the PCH. The PCH will take you past Half Moon Bay (pretty sea town), and Mavericks (home of big wave surfing), and more yummy twisty roads.

I have a variant of the 49 mile drive (tour of san francisco) that I usually take out of towners on which goes via Lombard Street, the painted ladies, twin peaks, castro street, etc, etc, which I can take you on when you are in the city. I would look for a travellodge - which is where my parents stayed when in town. The cost issue will be eased by the US's beleagered currency situation.

I also recommend spending a day in wine country (I usually head for northern sonoma, which has more boutiqey wineries that are cheaper and less annoyingly pretensious than the napa lot, but napa is worth seeing too).

Yosimite. Drive there at night and stay in their hotel thingo (not the expensive one). Wake up in the morning and be shocked because you are staring at a 7000 foot rock face. Definately worth a trip, but I haven't been there in winter, it can get hairy up in the sierras when there's snow about.

Lake Tahoe is similarly beautiful, scenery-wise, and worth a trip. Due to the fact that it is pissing down outside, it should have some great power skiing in a few days - if you like to ski....

As for 914 places, my route north takes a lot of good roads, there are some great roads in the East Bay, and also up north towards Napa. The roads here are pretty good, very very twisty, but generally fairly rough surfaces. If you want a truly excellent road, head to Aberystwyth via the Elan Valley.

I'll post again if I remember anything else. Let me know when you are here and we can hang out. (I am also a brit, btw).