Monterey Bay Aquarium - Vineyards

Our morning started off visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We had read at various places that it was a great aquarium as it was situated at the edge of the ocean. I had the impression that some of the exhibits were a part of the Pacific Ocean.

Unfortunately, being born and raised in Orlando and having visited Sea World quite a few times growing up, the visit to this aquarium was a bit anticlimactic (for me). They had a sea otter exhibit with two of them swimming around. It was upstairs and downstairs so you could see them in and out of the water. They also had a penguin exhibit, which was somewhat small. The aquarium is focused more on education rather than having a lot of animals (comparing it to Sea World). They had a large tank that held several different types of sharks including 1 baby great white as well as numerous other fish (Tuna, Sardine, etc). We watched the feeding show which we left after about 10 minutes.

They have a national marine sanctuary outside, which is a part of the ocean but it's just the ocean when you look out at it. Grab some binoculars; maybe you'll see something off in the distance!

We left the aquarium around lunch time and went into Pacific Grove to Latitudes, which is situated next to Lover's Point. Latitudes had yummy food and a great view of the point as well as additional coastline. After lunch, we were off for wine tasting!


I found a book at our inn which described a variety of different aspects of Monterey including the wine vineyards. About 20 minutes away, we drove into the canyon to visit those tasting rooms where they had vineyards, according to this book. We visited Bernadus, Heller Organic Vineyards, and Chateau Julien. Technically, none of them had vineyards although Chateau Julien was the closest with several grapes growing on the premises. Most others had vineyards but in some other "close" location. Ironically, Monterey has several tasting rooms including the Taste of Monterey, which does sampling of all the vineyards. I had wanted to go where they actually had the grapes growing and where they processed the wine. It was a fun afternoon stopping off at these few places and tasting the variety of wines. My husband didn't have any as he's not much of a wine drinker.

At the end of the day, we decided it was time to see a west coast sunset. Several people had recommended going to the Hyatt Highlands Inn and watching the sunset. Since it was located in Carmel, we decided to drive down Ocean Avenue which is "the" street for shopping in Carmel. For those familiar with Park Avenue in Winter Park, FL it was very similar to these stores. After a quick purchase for my husband, we headed toward Highlands Inn.

It was a gorgeous inn that sat on a small cliff overlooking the ocean. We had some appetizers and drinks in the lounge as we watched the sun go down. Those restaurants with nice views typically have windows from floor to ceiling (or close to it) and Highlands Inn was the same. Because of the strong wind advisory, they were actually securing the windows so they wouldn't break that night. We heard a week ago one of the windows did break and it blew glass throughout the lounge (as well as debris from the trees because of the wind). When we hiked later that week in our honeymoon, we could see the Highlands Inn and (we assume) all the window broke because it was covered with tarp!

The sunset was nice although, for some reason, I thought it would be better because it was the actual west coast. West coast, CA and west coast, FL - it looks the same!