the road to monterey

The last time we visited Monterey we breezed in without plans or reservations. Turk calls this 'flying by the seat of our pants', and it is by far his preferred style of travel. In this case spontaneity worked in our favor and we lucked into a luxurious room at the splendid Spindrift Inn. Our room had a cozy double bed covered by a plump duvet and soft, downy pillows, and boasted a wide balcony with wicker chairs overlooking the action down below on Cannery Row. It did not have a view of the ocean. What it did have was it's very own private sauna.
Now, I don't know if you've ever had a room with it's very own private sauna ~ we certainly hadn't ~ so just let me say this: if you have a choice between a room with an ocean view and a sauna, take the sauna. If you have a choice between a balcony and a sauna, take the sauna. If you have a choice between a TV, a mini bar, a phone, internet access or even a window, take the sauna. You will not be sorry. And you will thank me later. Hoping to recreate what had been a perfect evening the first time, we hit town again gambling on the availability of our room. Needless to say, the hotel was booked solid for some business convention or another in what I can only imagine was a terrible waste of our room and our sauna. Forlorn, we moved on.
Just around the corner from Cannery Row is Pacific Grove, a truly beautiful community of stately Victorian homes and elegant beach cottages. Originally settled as a Methodist summer camp, Pacific Grove grew in population as word got out of the area's breathtaking scenery and unrivalled beauty. Today, many of the old mansions have been converted to popular Bed and Breakfast inns, and we found a room in one of these. The first thing you notice about this stretch of the coastline are the colors; each time we come this way my travel log reads the same ~ remember the colors! There are no blues or greens or grays here. Here there are only azures and turquoise, heathers and mauve. The sky is cobalt, the flowers fuscia. Wild mustard and orange cactus cover the slopes and hills. The sea is wild, the coast spectacular ~ the famously gorgeous 17 Mile Drive is here, winding along adjoining Pebble Beach. When I win the lottery, (which, let's face it, I'm due to do any day now) this is where you'll find me, enjoying the fruits of my non-existent labors.
We spent the day hiking the coast and had a delightful dinner at the same restaurant we'd enjoyed on our last visit. The genial young host at Abalonetti's on Fisherman's Wharf was adorable, and even saw to it that we got 'our' table in time to enjoy the sunset. We dined happily on artichoke hearts and sauteed eggplant, succulent mussels, fresh King Salmon, and a rich mushroom ravioli.Afterwards, we strolled back to the Martine Inn, where we took a bottle of wine and sat outside at a tiny stone table in the terrace garden, watching the waves crash along the shore and musing dreamily as one does, deep in merlot and the moonlight, about sailing and serenity, everything and nothing. And which house would be ours when our ship came in.The lovely Martine had everything we could have hoped for in a romantic inn: a warm and cozy room decorated with period antiques; wine and hors d'oeuvres in the library, an amiable staff and, of course, that spectacular view.





There was only one thing it didn't have. It didn't have it's own personal sauna. Sometimes, life can be so hard.