Introduction
Northern California is best known for the sights of cosmopolitan San Francisco and the surrounding vineyards of the world-class Napa Valley and Sonoma County, with its ever-excellent vineyards and gorgeous Redwoods, some of the oldest trees in the world. Elsewhere the famous Yosemite National Park is a touching wilderness of imposing mountains, giant forests, gushing waterfalls and daunting granite rocks, while the twisting, cliff-hugging Pacific Coast Highway ranks as one of the drives of a lifetime. Further north the region is a rugged and sparsely populated landscape of dense giant redwood forests, volcanic mountains and arid plains.
