Photo Credit: Elsa Day
The sprawling San Francisco Bay Area, home to more than 7 million people, contains a surprising amount of green space, much of it concentrated in the rolling hills of the East Bay’s
Tri-Valley region.
Dog-friendly
hotels,
restaurants and
wineries abound, and if you’re looking for places to stretch your legs, the
East Bay Regional Park District manages tens of thousands of acres where you can do just that.
New and worth barking about is the
Tri-Valley Beer Trail, a collection of 18 craft breweries, taprooms and restaurants in Pleasanton, Livermore, San Ramon, Dublin And Danville.
Fourteen of them welcome dogs on their patios (and some in their taprooms), and all offer a laid-back environment in which to savor new flavors and styles of locally brewed beers.
And here’s a bonus:
Download the Tri-Valley Beer Trail passport, get 10 stamps from 10 different stops and turn it in for free goodies.
Wine tasting is another favorite pastime for Tri-Valley visitors, and with more than 50 venues tucked into verdant
Livermore Valley Wine Country, you can easily make a weekend of it.
We’ve
paw-tested quite a few that are dog-friendly and made them all easier to find with our interactive
California Wine Country map.
Three we find especially worth barking about:
El Sol, where Fido can join you on the patio for panoramic views of Altamont Pass;
Fenestra, where you and yours can sip and nibble in a lovely picnic area; and
Las Positas, where the dog-friendly picnic area boasts stellar vineyard views.
If your dog is the energetic sort, she’s bound to get restless watching you sip and swirl.
When it’s her turn to be the center of attention, cut her loose in one of Tri-Valley’s many off-leash dog parks. You’ll find seven of them in
Livermore, four in
San Ramon, one in
Dublin, one in
Danville and one in
Pleasanton.
And don’t come to Tri-Valley without hiking shoes: You’ll want them for jaunts short and long in small preserves like 177-acre
Acalanes Ridge Open Space or sprawling ones like
Del Valle Regional Park, a 5,000 acre preserve with 67 miles of trails, a lake and many other amenities.
At these and many other regional parks, your dog can hike leash-free so long as she’s sociable and has a dependable recall.
Photo credit: Elsa Day