Fodor's California 2001

Includes information on hotels and resorts, restaurants, beaches, walking and driving tours, nighttime entertainment, shopping, and sights of interest.

Destination California

California is too big, too diverse, too full of charming surprises to seem like a single state. You do not visit just one California. You choose a particular California. If you are looking for natural beauty, the Big Sur coastline isn't a bad place to start, but it's only one gem on a long, long list. If you favor worldly pleasures, San Francisco and the Wine Country beckon. Sybarites needing a fix are well advised to head to Palm Springs. Aficionados of the edgy love L.A. Wherever you go in the Golden State, there's plenty to fall in love with: very few visitors go home unsmitten.

North Coast

The shore running north from San Francisco to Oregon is a place for retreat -- for restoring the soul. But although its pleasures are low-key, they are hardly unrefined. Elegant country inns, cozy Victorian B&Bs, and rustic lodges provide comfortable bases for touring. Many are destinations in themselves. Architecture hints at the area's history, as in Mendocino and other towns that dot the coast, which have a New England flavor. Some of their founders built out of nostalgia, bringing classic Americana to the continent's edge as a tonic for homesickness. But before them, the missionaries and the Hispanic settlers -- even before the Native Americans -- there was the land and its beauty.

The Wine Country

America's answer to Tuscany, California's Wine Country -- Napa and Sonoma counties -- looks and feels like its Italian counterpart, with its rolling hills and soft Mediterranean climate. Wines made here have long won awards and have made the area  a force in the industry and a vibrant destination for food-and-wine lovers. Don't think you need a cultivated palate to enjoy yourself here, however. Local wine makers such as Sebastiani Vineyards happily educate the uninitiated during tours and in their tasting rooms. If you're lucky, you might arrive in time to see the grape harvest at Domaine Chandon or elsewhere. Whenever you visit, you will be greeted by row upon row of vines and wonderful food in scores of superb restaurants. No wonder the West Coast headquarters of the Culinary Institute of America is located in St. Helena. You may not want to take its courses, but you can order a few courses at the institute's Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant. The good life is also a hallmark of local inns and spas, including Rutherford's Auberge du Soleil and Calistoga's Cottage Grove Inn. Do some sightseeing, too. The towns and countryside are gorgeous. Sonoma's historic Mission San Francisco Solano reflects the Spanish influence, but you'll find Victorian gems as well. What you won't experience is any desire to leave any time soon.

San Francisco

This is simply the most beautiful city in the United States, and one of the most beautiful in the world. It is to the urban landscape what Yosemite is to the natural one. As a visitor you can rub elbows with its lucky citizens in the cable cars that negotiate hilly Hyde Street with aplomb, and admire the rosy rococo Palace of Fine Arts. In sun or fog, drive or walk across the landmark Golden Gate Bridge and take in sweeping views of the city from atop Coit Tower. Just strolling along thoroughfares like crooked Lombard Street or lively Market Street can fill a day. But sightseeing is only part of the San Francisco experience. The essence of the city is the diversity of its people, made all the more interesting because many groups cluster in like-minded (and usually open-minded) enclaves. The Chinatown Gate fronts one of the best-known neighborhoods, and although none of the others has so obvious a border marker, when you enter a new neighborhood in San Francisco, you often know it. Be sure to check out the neighborhood scenes, from bohemian yet ethnic North Beach -- where poetry readings still happen, street musicians jam, and old Italian merchants sell you cannoli that could have been made only in heaven -- to Chinatown to Pacific Heights to Japantown to the gay Castro to the countercultural Haight. San Francisco is a city you will never forget, and if you do leave your heart here, you won't be the first.

Los Angeles

It's hard to be indifferent to Los Angeles. Love it or hate it, it is a city unlike any other. Start forming your own impressions along Sunset Boulevard. It'll take you through Hollywood all the way to the sea, through the city's multiple layers, including wealthy Bel-Air and Beverly Hills. The sheer length of the drive underscores the city's sprawl. When you get to the ocean, you can experience the beach culture that's so integral to life here. Check out Venice Boardwalk, where Angelenos surf, skate, bodybuild,  and stage some of the wackiest street theater in the galaxy. Most of it is fun and none of it buttoned-down. Also pure L.A. are theme parks like Universal Studios Hollywood, where you can "live the movies" from Jurassic Park to Back to the Future, and Mann's Chinese Theatre, where celebrities press their hands and other body parts into cement for posterity. When you're ready for shopping (high-class or funky), nightlife (from alternative to swing), or dining (from taquerías to Asian-fusion innovators), you'll find it in L.A. Amid the freeways and smog, the city's numerous beauty spots sometimes come as a surprise -- at the Richard Meier-designed Getty Center, or at sunset, when a cinematic glow bathes Griffith Park Observatory and ribbons of violet back serve as backdrop for the twinkling town. Be here then, and you may think you're surveying a city of angels.