The Best Swimming Pool In Napa's Wine Country

Imagine you have little time for a getaway. Let's say, for example, you can spare one day and two nights. Let's say you make your way to the Carneros Inn in Napa, California.

You'd wake up here, to morning light and a newspaper in your mailbox.


Then you'd amble up the hill for breakfast, pausing to watch early sun over the valley.


Eat in the Hilltop Restaurant. When it's not too hot, you can sit outside and keep gazing at the view and the best swimming pool in Napa. On really hot days, however, you'll prefer to eat in here.

Either way, you're going to want a freshly-cooked, home-made, sugar-covered mini-doughnut. Those sugar crystals crack between your teeth, and the doughnut itself is what I can only call bouncy.

Then you can go back to your cottage. Don't bother with the extra charges for Vineyard Cottages. Garden is more than good enough. Or you might have come with friends, or family, and rented a house.

(Click to enlarge. Ask to be in the Knittel, or Crane, or Peck 'neighborhood.' They surround adorable little courtyards, with fountains. Away from the roads, but not too close to that pool and its banging gate. Registration won't promise, but no harm in asking)

Either way, right about now you're probably going to want to suit up and return to the pool.


Where, luckily, you can eat lunch. Nice people will bring you food on white plates. Many guests will also be drinking wine, even though it's only 11:30 in the morning. That's because it's Wine Country.

Luckily, they have pool umbrellas. Under which you may want to nap. Because, again, it's Wine Country.

Then you will want to exercise. Because it's Doughnut AND Wine Country.

Then, as a reward for exercising, you will take a walk. Out past one of the many fountains, down one of the many paths lined by fruit trees, up towards the spa.

Where you will notice, yet again, that everything looks most beautiful standing against the blue of a Northern California late summer sky. But you won't spend too much time pondering the ineffable, since in a few minutes, someone is going to bring you drinks of anti-oxidant tea and pat your jowls into cheerful submission.

After which, you will emerge, soothed, to see that there are still people in the pool at 5:30pm. The friendly pool guy will tell you this is one of the most active times, in the friendly pool. People return from vineyards, and retire to the water, to drink wine and laugh. Because this is Wine Country.


Then to dinner. You can go either to Farm, or to the Boon Fly Cafe. Farm is wonderful, because you can sit outside and eat from the bar menu and drink. But Mondays and Tuesdays Farm is closed for dinner. So you're gonna wind up here. Eating something like fried green tomatoes, or buffalo wings. And drinking something like, well, you know, wine.


And then night will fall.


And you'll wander all the way back to your cottage. The next day, you could go visit some vineyards. Or not. The pool is kind of salty, by the way, so you float with no effort whatsoever.

Images
me
Note that no compensation has been received for this post. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The Privilege[d] Guide to Packing for Bathing Suit Resorts

A mesh beach bag my sister found in Los Angeles. Transparent beach bags are good for a) sand release b) finding books, sunscreen and glasses.

There's an entire category of vacation places we might call "bathing suit" resorts. You know, the kind where days are passed by the side of a pool, a lake, or the ocean, and one's bathing suit is rarely dry. I have often packed my bags for these occasions. It's my favorite way to spend time off.

Tory Burch beaded skirt, five gold bangles, the joys of a tank top, black jeweled sandals

I've believe I've got this packing down to a science, or, to be fair, an art. Science obeys universal laws, but style varies person to person. My mother still packs a special travel bathrobe. She still has special grape-cutting scissors too. But I digress. So.

The [Privileged] Guide to Packing for Bathing Suit Resorts, Or, What To Bring?

Olive shorts and shirt. Ironically, minimalism can be achieved with very little. Orange Havianas. Exceptionally comfortable rubber flip-flops. With some style.

1. Bring at least 2 bathing suits. 3, even better. Putting on a wet suit is one of the more unpleasant first world problems. Your life will be made easier if you pack complementary colors. Green, peach, and pink, or, blue, white, and black, for example. Hues of any sort terrify me in regular life. Vacations are different. Packing for a resort is all about color, since you will want limited structure in your clothing, and minimal texture to your fabrics.
   
2. A cover-up, for walking to the water. I prefer sarongs. Thin fabric over bathing suit tops reveals straps and various bumps and wiggles. Looks messy. You hair will have already developed its own lovely wisps and frizzles. No need to turn up the mess dial. Whereas a sarong covers that which must be covered, and cascades gracefully down your legs. If you need something up top, wear a button-front shirt, or a plain white heavy tee. Millions of Southeast Asian men have proved the concept.
   
3. 3 pairs of flip-flops, some, um, flippier than others. If you make sure that one pair is bejeweled leather, you will never have find yourself teetering on lava stone steps, or sinking into spongy paths. Again, explore interesting colors. It's amazing how stylish a pair of lavender flip-flops can look, when you're wearing little else.
   
4. A pair of shoes for activities more strenuous than walking, on terrain more difficult than sand, or tile.
   
5. A hat. Not a baseball cap - they can't shade the critical parts of your face. Not stiff-brimmed either. Stiff-brimmed hats prevent one from laying one's head back on a lounge chair to read. Mid-size, soft, white hats are perfect, as the brim can be folded up to make a point in conversation. Or watch particularly attractive passers-by.
6. Sunscreen. But not too much. Over 30 SPF often discolors clothing. Sun umbrellas are your best friends. Just hide. Come out for swimming. Hide some more.
7. A cloth or straw beach bag. Enormous pink slouchy patent leather bags don't mix with water. And they disturb my serenity besides.
   
8. Workout gear. For justifying mini-doughnuts sprinkled with coarsely granulated sugar or the third glass of pinot noir. Or both.
   
9. Some shorts. Some tank tops or tees. For meals. I am from the old school that feels dining rooms should not be entered in visible bathing suits. It's just not that hard to walk back to your room to put on your suit after breakfast.
   
10. A couple of skirts. And your "good" tank tops or tee shirts. No top you have to fuss with is worth the effort, for warm nights by water. Impunity. If you are going somewhere with cool nights, bring a pair of pants. Warm nights were made for white jeans.
    
11. Gold or silver bangles. If you sport silver sequins, the bangles should be gold. It's vacation - live dangerously - mix metals. Aim to appear nonchalant, under the theory that 'displaying the affect brings the effect.' Smile and the world smiles with you. Bangle, and the world bangles with you.
    
12. A wrap, a shawl, or, if you have more panache than I, some kind of 3/4 coat with kimono sleeves that you happened to pick up in, say, Bali. In 1972. Or 1986. Or 2001.
    

Bathing suits. A sarong. And yes, now that you ask, those are sequins. I didn't say life had to be all work and no play. Or all appropriate and no edge.

Happy swimming, where ever you may hit the water. It's been 95+ degrees Fahrenheit in Northern California these last few days. Good timing for a getaway, and serendipitous last minute plans.

Old Ladies In Bathing Suits, Or, Saturday Morning at 9:01am

Indian summer this week. Temperatures in the 90s. So yesterday we decided to go to Napa for a few days. Sit by a swimming pool, on a hillside. We leave tomorrow. I'm packing this morning, very happily.

It's not a cold climate, here by the San Francisco Bay. But it does get wet come winter. Ever since I turned 35 - perhaps 40, I don't remember - I've had the sense that summer serves to dry out our bones. Gets in there and bakes the marrow empty. This is a climate where you are well-served to take your cues from the seasons. We do without air conditioning for good reason.

When your bones are dry you can rest easy. When you exhale, with dry bones, anything difficult leaves with your breath. I know this is imaginary, but we are allowed a little bit of magical realism.

These days, if I think about it, my only unsolvable difficulty is aging. The minute we reach peace with ourselves, forgive old mistakes and get comfortable with our emotional makeup, the universe pulls out a new trick.

I turn 54 on Thursday. I'm not yet sure of my philosophy and approach to older age. What to fight and what to embrace? Do I still follow my instincts? The pull of the seasons becomes stronger. Are they more dangerous now? I mean this not at all in a morbid fashion, but I understand more old people die in winter.

I need a strong summer now. More sun to dry my bones. This is not a bad thing. If you're my age, maybe you feel the same way.

If you're young, I imagine you wish I wouldn't talk about this. When I was young I wanted to hear no talk of aging or death. I figured I'd never die, and that old age would be scary. But sitting here, now, an open suitcase on my floor, a bathing suit at the ready, it's really not so bad.

I've been watching old ladies in bathing suits all my life. The summer we lived in Santa Monica, I remember an old lady tanned dark brown, shameless in her maillot. My next door neighbor mowed her lawn in a bikini top. She must have been 60 at the time. I forgive them all now and I wag my finger at my younger self who disapproved. I didn't know it wasn't about their skin, or their flesh, anymore. It's bones. And I didn't know how good they felt in the sunshine.

Feel no more pity or shame for old ladies in their bathing suits. They are, perhaps, evolved. Seasonal, if you will.

Do You Know What Makes A Good Vacation Souvenir?

I have no souvenirs of my trip to Sweden. At least nothing purchased.

I brought home photos, of course. It would have been hard not to, surrounded by such sights. Here's a last one. The inlet, where my stepfamily docks their boats.

The lack of goods isn't completely my fault, or my virtue for that matter. There aren't many stores on Ingmarso. However, when we visited Sandhamn I did buy a shirt for my daughter. Her birthday's coming up. It's white, tunic-style, with a criss-cross tie. I gave it to her while we were there.

I thought about this shirt too,

given the label.

Some things follow you all your life. No matter where you go. I hadn't known Scandinavian Preppy was crying out for definition, but travel will broaden the mind.

Another possibility on Sandhamn.

But having brought dishtowels home from France, enough, it seemed, was enough in the way of pieces of cloth with which to mop my pots.

On my way home, I spotted this gentleman in Chicago. He had gotten off the flight from Stockholm too. He wore natty, orange napkin clips from SAS business class on his sky blue Lacoste lapel. I told him he looked great. Clips would have been good souvenirs.

There is something else I am coveting, however, as a post-trip souvenir. Remember how Sweden just had a royal wedding? And you know what the Europeans do when they have a royal wedding? They go all capitalist. Leading to fabulous items de decor. That's fancy French for stuff.

Witness the Royal Collection. These are table runners.

But I want the Royal Collection porcelain bowls. My Swedish stepsister gave mugs in this pattern to my daughter and I started wringing my hands and thinking, "My Preciousssssssss," immediately. They are so smooth. The pale blue is so pale. My china is white, or white and gold. Of course, I'd have to hide the pink and gold Murano doves that sit on my dining table or risk perpetual Easter egg as a home decor theme, but The Princess needs my support. She told me so.

What souvenirs do you like to bring home? And what are your feelings about royal wedding china? Do you have any feelings about royal wedding china? I had a friend who collected Coronation mugs. The British and their inimitable sense of humor. I just can't figure out if I want these bowls - because I like them - or whether once they were in my house I'd say to myself, "Really? Crowns?"

But good souvenirs are exempt from the usual strictures.

Images: Mostly me, except,
Scandinavian Designs Table Runners
Scandinavian Designs Bowls

The Rapture Of A Northern Maritime

There were no berries this year, on Ingmarso. We traded them in, apparently, for sun. Day after day of sun. No rain means few berries, and the ones that do grow are small and dry. Even the moss on the rocks was crisp.

I arrived Monday morning, and was at the mainland harbor by midday. Clouds briefly overhead.

We took a boat to my stepfamily's house Some time, not too long after we arrived, the sun began to set. I watched from the steps.

Eventually some darkness. Even in the long days of Swedish summer it gets dark eventually.

My youngest sister and her family arrived later that night. But we woke up early in the morning and went to swim in the fresh water pond behind the house.

A dry forest crunches underfoot.

Ponds, however, are ponds. My nephew fell in. The rest of us got out covered in pond vegetation. Commonly known as slime. It was a wild time. Other bacchanalia included frog-catching and fishing with worms off the dock.

The next day we took a boat out into the Baltic. One can say many things about this part of the world. None of them complex.

Granite rocks slope directly into brackish water. The sky is wide, the sea brightly lit. There are houses, here and there. Boats, here and there. More boats than houses. More trees than boats. More sky than anything. Well, except perhaps sea.

The Stockholm Archipelago is either a place simply defined, or a place of worship for the erstwhile soul. Imagine Gregorian chants, only blue, and windy. Some people like the tropics best. Others prefer the blasted purity of a Northern maritime.

The thing is, it's just so beautiful. We walked to the harbor, where there were boats, as is common in harbors.

The next day we went to Sandhamn. On what can only be called a yacht. We flew the Swedish flag, of course.

We passed the Royal Yacht Harbor, where royals keep their, well, yachts.

We passed houses. A small one.

A red one.

We went to sleep. We got up. We took the smaller boats to a smaller island. Where children played and made the rocks into worlds. I remember what that was like, when I was small.

The sky was pretty blue.

You can survive the sea, maybe. You can survive the sky, maybe, But the next sight, and there will be one more and then another, will roll your eyes back into your head. I said several times that if this kept up I might faint. I should perhaps have worn a life preserver on the boat, to float, overcome, when I careened overboard.

With so little on the horizon, one's middle opens a space in recognition. You swoon but you remain. All the voices and startles left over from running an ordinary life take their leave. Consciousness stays. Which means you meditate without trying. Or maybe the landscape itself recites, " Sky, land, water, sky, land, water," until you reach a clear mind.

One gains perspective, floating, head visible, on a large dark blue green barely salt sea.

It is a time when empty means beautiful. Not lonely. Not void. Not sorrow. It convinces you that man's natural state is rising joy and elation.

On the last day, my stepbrother-in-law and one of my sisters and I took a hike a little off the beaten track. I found room for water-lilies. There's more room for beauty than I would have guessed.

As though every breath is some kind of drug.


Images: By me, except the red house and Swedish flag, by my brother-in-law.
Note: My apologies for the breathlessness here but there's really nothing else that I could say. We will return to regular immediately.

What Everybody Ought To Know About Swedish Home Style

To some, Swedish home style means something like these below. Seats? I'm not sure.

The Grandes Dames among us might dream more grandly. Maybe of Swedish gilt.

In fact, as lived, Swedish home design is above all endearing. Made for smiling. Some things are fuzzy, some anthropomorphic. White for dark winters, and color for long summers - woven, or bended, or carved. But little seems to be made without thought, or placed without care.

The Swedish interiors I have experienced are places of comfort. Where each detail warms your heart. Sort of like one long wedding, of family to itself. Even in summer, when the interior is, well, outside.

This is my stepfamily's house on Ingmarso, in the Stockholm Archipelago, taken early one morning as everyone else lay sleeping.

Being infinitely wise about people living in close quarters, they have also built an attached little house, known as, The Little House.

My stepfather acquired this land almost 50 years ago. Recently his daughter remodeled the main kitchen, beautifully. The counters, I believe, are teak, the cabinets stainless steel, all from Ikea. This should surprise no one.

When you wake up early, pull open a drawer and find pastry from the local bakery. The plastic bag closes with a miniature clothes pin, decorated with what appears to be a sailing flag. I want 65, please, since I'm sure I would lose many and feel sad if I could not return immediately to Sweden for replacements.

As you can see, the kitchen is now part of the living room. And, other than four small bedrooms and one bathroom, that's it for the main house. Can you see the red-painted wood chairs? My favorites.

There's little need for space in vacation cottages. You live outside. You shower outside. You eat outside.

The first night, we had salmon, salad, and potatoes. This should surprise no one. Potatoes are to Swedes as snow, mythically, is said to be for the Inuit. They have even invented special potato-poking tools to assess doneness. Often decorated with a carved wooden moose head. See the printed napkin on the right? Blue, white, gold, and paper. Oh boy.

Warmth, humor, and detail carry out past the home and into restaurants. One day we all got into a large boat, owned by my stepsister's colleague, and went to Sandhamn. Another island. One with a delicious restaurant. Where they serve chilled water in glass bottles decorated with a rope braid collar. My sister held the bottle and poured. Thanks, sister.

The napkin ornamentation was nice too. I love a monogram and chain stitch.

The kind restaurant owners had painted the ceiling a gorgeous cerulean blue, and mounted cobalt chandeliers for contrast. A gorgeousness overdose, really.

The brass hinge on the window next to my seat. They had me at cerulean, hinges were unnecessary.

What appears to be Libby's Corned Beef Hash, below, is in fact a dish called Pytt i Panna. Cubes of beef, ham, potato, onion and beets. While my tongue craved a crayfish stew, Pytt i Panna is what my stepfather wanted me to cook when he first got out of the hospital so I felt that fate was saying this needed to be my lunch. It was pretty good. Jamie Oliver agrees with me.

Even the most casual of places cater to aesthetic sensibilities. Later in the week we ate at the Ingmarso harbor cafe. This place used to be called something like Armadillo Willy's but came to its senses for the most part and reverted to cultural roots. Except the nachos but we will gloss over those quickly. A blue metal pail full of utensils and napkins. Sigh.

To say nothing of something called Planka, meaning "board." An aquavit and sealife taster. For my brothers-in-law.

I had beer and fried Baltic herring, or strumming. I can't eat pickled herrings, no matter how they pickle those poor critters, but fried in batter and nestled into some mashed potatoes and melted butter? Oh boy. Oh boy.

Finally, the stairs leading from the inlet dock up to the house. Whether the builder knew that the top landing would make a perfect place to sit, mug in hand, and watch the sun play on the water, I do not know. In a Swedish summer, home style includes skylight. And I love the way unfinished wood smells when it gets warm. Especially when it's old enough that you don't have to worry about splinters.

I can't forget my manners. The only Swedish word I know is thank you, but it's the most important here. "Tack," Swedish family, "Tack sa mycket."

Images:
Bended thingies from life is carbon, all about Scandinavian design
Mirrors from Cupboards & Roses, specializing in Swedish antiques
All others by me

Note: The scenery is yet to come. I haven't forgotten that all these home goods sat in the middle of the sky on some water.