California cheese road trip to Sonoma and Marin County – Travel Photo Mondays
One of the fun things to do around West Sonoma County and also going towards Napa is to do the delicious cheese trail, one of the fun things to do in Sonoma that will be a fun and foodie experience to enjoy around the county.
Cheese Road trip to Sonoma and Marin County in California
Ah so moist, delicate with fruity flavorings – no, I’m not talking about the delicious wines being served up here in Sonoma county a place that everyone equates to wine country, but more so the amazing creameries that you find through most of West Sonoma and Marin County in northern California. The area is blessed with green rolling hills, fat cows and dairies that are a perfect environment for the creameries. Dotting a scenic area in both counties, the area hosts a wonderful cheese trail for cheese fanatics to explore and enjoy artisanal producers of creamy, cheddar, jack and a variety of specialty cheeses.
Petaluma Creamery, a century year old creamery in downtown Petaluma
You can start the cheese tour either from Marin county or on the other end at Sonoma – one of the easiest starting points would be at the century old Petaluma Creamery at 711 Western Avenue in downtown Petaluma. The creamery is has been an institution creating a variety of goat cheese, curds, jack cheeses and cheddar cheese. The creamery also sells artisanal cheese from Spring Hill Cheese varieties like flavored jack and cheddar cheeses .
Flavored Jacks and other specialty cheeses at Petaluma Creamery
Afterwards, we head out of downtown Petaluma to Marin county across Petaluma Hill Road. Outside of town, you are quickly transported to rolling green hills and beautiful pastoral landscapes filled with cows. Here you will find a variety of creameries open to the public and some available by appointment.
Gorgeous rolling hills in West Sonoma County
The cows out number people in this area of West Sonoma county
Following the leader in Petaluma Hill road in Sonoma county
Marin French Cheese, 7500 Red Hill Road on Petaluma Hill Road. The creamery is about 7 miles south of Petaluma and heading out to Marin County and Point Reyes area. At the tasting room, you can sample a variety of delicious soft cheese made on the premises. This includes Brie, Camembert, Triple cream Brie and flavored cheeses like their Triple Crème Brie with Truffles. Just outside the shop is a nice pond and picnic tables to sit and enjoy some of the cheese and other snacks you can purchase in the tasting room, it’s so nice to just slow down, sit and enjoy some delicious cheese out in the country.
Delicious Marin French Cheese to sample or purchase
You can have a picnic by the pond and grassy area with daisies
Ponds and picnic area at Marin French Cheese
Nicasio Valley Cheese Company, 5300 Nicasio Valley Road. Fairly close to Marin French cheese and off Petaluma Hill Road, you detour at Nicasio Valley Road to get to Nicasio Valley Cheese company. Here at the tasting room, they offer soft ripening cheese to sample and purchase. These include their popular line of camembert style cheese like Formagella and Halleck Creek to Fontina like San Geronimo and Nicasio Square. All the cheese available to sample are delicious: soft, creamy, rich and ripe in some instances.
You have arrived Nicasio Valley cheese
Ah yes, who doesn’t like sampling soft, creamy and flavorful cheese.
Tasting room at Nicasio Valley Cheese company.
Driving further into West Marin county into the little hamlet of Point Reyes Station you enter the town and at the far end of town is Cowgirl Creamery, 80 4th Street, Point Reyes station. Their soft organic creamy cheese are named for famous natural landmarks in Marin County like the popular Mount Tam, Chimney Rock, Inverness and Devils Gulch. They produce a variety of cheese including cottage cheese, crème fraiche, frommage blanc and quark. I also wrote a post earlier about Point Reyes station, it’s a cool and fun little town to explore, take a look at my post here.
Cowgirl Creamery at Point Reyes Station
Exploring the cute hamlet of Point Reyes station – yes please!
Point Reyes Station
This is just a small sampling of cheese shops and tasting rooms open to the public throughout West Sonoma and Marin County. There are many cheese locations to visit on the Cheese tour in Sonoma and Marin county, some are open to the public and others by appointment. You can download the free cheese trail map here.
If you enjoyed this post check out these other Sonoma places to visit
West Sonoma county photo essay
Sonoma Dry Creek Valley road trip
St. Francis winery food and wine experience
Cool designs at Cornerstone in Sonoma
Visiting Hip Healdsburg in Sonoma
Visiting the Russian fort at Fort Ross
Kendall Jackson winery and gardens
Wines and gardens at Ferrari Carano
Conclusion to the California cheese tour at Sonoma and Marin Counties
Hope that this post on Sonoma cheese trail was inspiring and that you will get to explore the many fantastic attractions, historic sites and landmarks to visiting the national parks around the state. If you enjoyed reading the post, please do bookmark it or share it with any of the social media buttons below.
Love this post Noel.
I have a fascination for discovering lesser known places and this is a treasure trove.
Supriya
Great post. Thanks for sharing! If you love cheese and California, this is a must read.
Those photos of the cheese tastings really make me long for a nice piece of Brie. Mexico has great cheeses but so far I haven’t found anything like a creamy Brie. I’d love to go on a California Road Trip and stop by Cowgirl Creamery and more. I’ve pinned some photos to my must-do list.
I visited Marin County last November. I really thought I was going to San Francisco, but I decided to simply explore Marin County as it’s so beautiful and I found so many awesome hiking trails which is what I really like to do. Love your photos of the flower fields – so pretty!
Proving that there’s turf to match the surf on California. It’s much the same on Gran Canaria. Fantastic photos, Noel.
What a delightful trip around California to find all these great cheeses along the way! Always been a fond lover of different cheese and coming from England I am pretty fortunate to have a great collection to choose from but I think this would be equally cool to experience and sample some of Cali’s finest!
One of my favorite travel memories is a trip years ago to Oregon’s Tillamook Cheese Factory and sampling all the amazing cheeses. I would so love to visit the specialty cheese stores in Sonoma and Marin Counties and do a road trip to sample all their delicious products!
Actually, tasting cheese is an excellent excuse to spend some generous time in the vineyards and countryside of California. It is such a gorgeous state in the US! Beautiful photos! 🙂
We were just in the Sonoma area in June. Petaluma is a great little town. Nothing better than California wine and cheeses. Thanks for being part of our #WeekendWanderlust linkup this week.
Who doesn’t love cheese, right? Sounds like a fun trip!
I need to make this trip! What beautiful photos! I love cows and all of the colors of the meadows. I also LOVE cheese!
I never think of California as a very cheesy state – but what a combo with the wine and the places that you’ve shown us that would be fantastic for a picnic…yes please.
That cheese looks amazing. I just got back from a trip to the Adriatic where I’m pretty sure my diet consisted of nothing but bread and cheese — something I could live off of for approximately forever. I’ll have to keep this in mind the next time I head out to California!
Thanks for hooking up to #WeekendWanderlust!
You sure hit the highlights! I LOVE the cheese curds at Petaluma Creamery, and I LOVE the cows you see everywhere in this area.
I love all photos but my favourite is the one of the cows.
Great pictures (as always), making me want some cheese!
I would totally go on a cheese tour. In Vermont I loved stopping by Cabot’s headquarters where you can sample of 50 kinds of cheese!
Who doesn’t love cheese, right?! We have a similar creamery here in the Rogue Valley – The Rogue Creamery – and they are award winning makers of incredible blue cheese. It’s a dangerous place to visit too often!
It seems we are on the same page this week. My link is about Maui restaurants.
cheeese…now this would be a great day. sampling cheese in holland was on my list, but i only found one store, in haarlem, that let me. needless to say we were there for a while and we bought a lot!
thanks so much for hosting this!
b
I love cheese 😀 the pictures are tempting. And the countryside looks so peaceful and lovely.
This sounds like heaven! I’d love to stop at a few creameries in between tastings at some vineyards, then have a picnic with all the tasty things I bought along the way!
A while back, maybe still? there was an ad campaign about happy California cows. I think you found them! Love that photo. Farmers in our family say happy cows give tastier milk. This looks like a great tour.
Lovely photos, I would love to have a picnic by that pond
I’ve heard of wine tours in this area of California, but not cheese tours. The cheese looks delicious and the scenery is beautiful. What fun it would be to combine cheese and wine visits in a road trip.
Looks delicious… especially Brie, one of my favorite….
Ohh the mention of cheese and my cholesterol soars! But I LOVE cheese! Cheese and great scenery – awesome 🙂 And that scenery in West Sonoma County, just beautiful. I can see it’s a trip that one day in the future my hubby and I must do when we get to the States.
I must say that until now, the words “cheese” and “California” never went together in my mind. Your post and lovely photos about Sonoma cheeses and diaries has changed that forever.
A picnic amongst the daisies would be lovely thanks Noel. Some soft cheese and a bottle of wine and it would be a perfect day. Those cows looked very interested in you Noel 🙂
Noel, We’re on the same page this week. My link is to a cheese farm I visited in Switzerland. Love your cheese pics…especially the cows!
Oh my goodness, am gonna show this to hubby, so we can visit this cheese farm whenever we come this area! Can eat cheese to my heart’s delight! Thanks for sharing:)
Fantastic photos! I really love the art mural on the wall at the Point Reyes Station. Thank you so much for linking up with #WeekendWanderlust! Just as a quick sidenote, when you link up we do require that you post our #WeekendWanderlust image with a link back to one of the blogs that hosts! I have all of the instructions available here – http://justinpluslauren.com/link/ , it’s an easy cut and paste of code to place at the bottom of your post. Thank you so much for linking up this week and we hope to see you back next week as well!
I love the countryside pictures, especially the one of the rolling hills. I like the cows too. 🙂
Oh, California is just so beautiful, isn’t it??? Thanks for sharing!