Getaway weekend in Placerville and Coloma

When you plan a weekend trip, especially one in the Sierra foothills outside Placerville, it’s best to have a solid base from which you sally forth toward — and crawl back from — your adventures.

My sweetheart Alice and I decided that a comfortable bed at the Eden Vale Inn just outside Hangtown punched every ticket: savory breakfasts, intriguing grounds (garden-side bounties of bowling balls and Buddhas, anyone?), a private, outside-deck hot tub for every room, and the rooms themselves, with their fireplaces and mood lighting, artful and agreeable.

The inn is an easy drive through sun-streaked oak forests to some of El Dorado County’s historic hitching posts: those dusty diggings outside Coloma that sparked the California Gold Rush in 1848. That rush also drew the lawless ruffians whose necktie parties gave nearby Placerville its historical name of Hangtown. But don’t get hung up on that — there’s a lot to do in and around the area that will keep your head happily and firmly in its place.

One way to go for the gold is to stroll the region’s golden hills, and there are 25 miles of trails low and high at Cronan Ranch Trails Park, a quick jaunt from the inn just off Highway 49. We took a scenic, gradually ascending four-mile-or-so hike through the grassy, oak-topped hills, stopping to gaze at high-valley views and particularly digging some nice vistas of the south fork of the American River sparkling below. If you’re of a mind and body to go white-water rafting, there are plenty of outfitters in the area to plunk you into a boat.

But we eschewed the canoe for lunch at the hip, friendly and funky Argonaut Cafe in once gold-mad Coloma, where James Marshall found some glittery pretty at Sutter’s Mill and sent the price of local eggs (and other basics) rocketing skyward. The Argonaut is in the midst of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where you can discover all the ways that some veins of underground metal made most folks plain crazy.

If you want lunch without going crazy, the Argonaut is a fine place. I had a smokin’ smoked turkey sandwich and a fresher-than-fresh side salad. The cold brew coffee there is strong and stimulating. So stimulating that it seemed only natural to seek alternate spirits, and that was easy: We spent some pleasant time at the nearby Gold Hill Winery, where we tasted away.

I was quite taken with their viognier, which they describe as “a refreshing, delicate white Rhone.” I describe it as good, and we got a nice discount on a case. The cabernet franc stood out to me as well for its mellow balance. And if it’s wine tasting that winds you up (and down), there are more than 100 wineries in El Dorado and Amador counties alone, so you can easily get your gold — and your darker fermentations — by the glass.

Dined and wined, we wound our way back to the inn, where we availed ourselves of the great outdoor kitchen, with its barbecues, tableware, sink and fridge to whip up a nice fish and veggies dinner from goods we’d stocked there earlier.

The next day, most of our hiking was done in colorful downtown Placerville, which has many diverting boutiques, antiques and restaurants that smack of its historic past without being airlessly touristy. Check out the beautiful lobby of the 1857 Cary House Hotel, where if Mark Twain had waited around long enough, he would have bumped into Elvis Presley. And the pizza at the Heyday Café might not have gold nuggets, but it was great prospecting nonetheless.

We left Hangtown happy and hangoverless. And we’ll be back.