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Hotel Charlotte
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Tioga
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California's Highway 4: Mostly Murphys | |||||||||||||||
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For more Murphys, Calaveras Big |
Once at Ironstone, enjoy
the well appointed tasting room and surrounding gift shop. This is also a great location
to have a nice lunch from the deli counter. We had our sandwiches while
taking in the views along
with a glass of the reserve chardonnay. Ironstone is famous also for their
500,000 daffodil bulbs that all bloom in unison in March.
While at the Ironstone complex, take time to explore the museum and jewelry center. Having done two summer seasons of gold panning in a pre-innkeeper life, we were thrilled with their nugget specimen, a huge 44 lb flakey gold rock found in 1992 and stored in true bank vault. Ironstone has regular public events including concert series, black and white movie nights and more. Our favorite of their annual activities are posted on the calendar page. From Ironstone we returned to Murphy's and explored the many tasting rooms in the downtown area. Our first of many stops was Zucca Winery, found just off the main street up a bit from the park stepping down into a cave. The ambiance was warm and the wine most tasteful! We left with a bottle of port.
Next on our walk is Hatcher, one of our favorites both for the wine and the charm of Matt and his
tasting room team. Victor thinks this year's Zinfandel is most outstanding.
We bought a magnum. Twisted Oak with their whimsical gift shop and fun approach to
everything is another worthy stop and their wines are good to!
Murphy's is a great walking village with good window shopping. We ventured into several galleries and antique shops and even found a good sign to use at the hotel: Gone Fishing carved in the side of a wooden fish. If we ever do get out fishing, we are now ready with a proper sign!
Don't overlook the antique plumbing store on the
left, just beyond the old Murphy's Hotel, for bit of fussing about old
porcelain and plumbing pieces.
Even I had fun here. Amazingly they have
the clawfoot tubs on the third floor. How do they get there, why the
third floor?
The Murphy's Hotel is a true step back in time. Here we tried an Australian wine and another local wine and enjoyed the impromptu guitar-sing-a-long performed by some regulars. Since you are as far as Murphy's, why not travel a bit further up the road (15 minutes) to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. This state park contains some of the most awe inspiring trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the world. Many redwoods exceed 250 feet in height, the tallest being about 325 feet high. While they no longer allow you to drive through a giant tree, you can still walk through it. In the spirit of staying in old gold country historic inns, we spent the night at the Murphy's Hotel, in the old section. We were the only folks in enjoying this step back in time...so our bathrooms, while not ensuite, were private! We had one of the two rooms that open up onto the porch overlooking Main Street. We of course, bought a bottle of wine an our chairs out to the porch and enjoyed a very nice late summer evening. You can continue this route north through Gold Country following our Highway 49 itinerary, or head over the Ebbetts Pass, a beautiful, if somewhat narrow and winding passage to the Eastern Sierras. Once over the Mountain, you can continue north on 89 towards Lake Tahoe or east to Highway 395 where you can choose to head north to Reno or make a loop South towards Bodie, over Tioga Pass and Groveland (but not on the same day!) |
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This is a really
fun day trip, but could require a designated driver! From Groveland head down the
hill on Route 120 to Highway 49 then follow to Angels Camp, about 45
minutes. Take a right onto Route 4 and follow to Murphy's, another 15
minutes. Entering Murphy's you will
see
a sign that claims to be the "other wine country." We fully agree. This trip to Murphy's
we did a stop at most of the vineyard tasting rooms, starting with the
country-side setting of 
Hotel Charlotte
Digg this!