Fight for a just cause. Love your fellow man. Live a good life.": this was the motto of William Bourne, builder of Filoli, one of America's great estates. Its Georgian-style mansion—superbly sited, with 16 acres of formal gardens reminiscent of the English Renaissance--surrounded by 600+ acres of woodland. Open mid-February through late October, it remains unknown to most visitors to the Bay Area. Yet it merits the leisurely attention of any aficionado of traditional architecture or a beautiful open-air experience.
We can make a day of visiting the Bay Area's great public gardens: Hakone Japanese Garden in Saratoga…larger and less crowded than the one in Golden Gate Park; the famous Berkeley Rose Garden…its panoramic view overlooking the Bay, the little known yet special Blake Garden in Kensington, the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden; the gardens of the Spanish-style village known as Allied Arts near Stanford's campus; the grand Conservatory of Flowers and,or 55-acre Strybing Botanical Garden in San Francisco--you choose what you'd love to see. Of course, we'll make lunch special and pick the most scenic routes between one beauty and the next. What will it Cost? Because each tour is designed to fit your interests, our fees vary. Basically you pay by the number of hours in your itinerary. We do not add the fuel surcharges, "license fees," "tax" and mandatory gratuities that many other companies do.
