Howdy.

All business on this Friday.

Just kidding, but we are going to make this one quick.

By my watch, Festival Napa Valley is kind of the main character this weekend. But I found a couple other fun little segments too, because as always, there is a ton going on if you look around for more than six seconds.

You have the great local stuff, and then you have all the pay-to-play things around it that our little tourism town provides so generously.

So let’s get into it.

Trivia: What is the second biggest local park in Napa by acreage?

A. Fuller Park
B. Kennedy Park
C. Westwood Hills Park
D. Alston Park

Answer later in the issue…

Here’s the big one: Festival Napa Valley

This can sound a little fancy from the outside, but the useful thing to know is that not everything is a gala or a giant-ticket situation.

There are also some easier entry points, including admission-free concerts at CIA at Copia, which is probably the least painful way to feel like you are part of the whole thing.

If you do not know, Festival Napa Valley has been going on for 20 years now, which is kind of wild. It is one of those big Napa summer institutions that might fly a little under the radar if you are not actively following the arts / gala world.

Here are just a few ways to get in on it this weekend:

Music & Wellness Summit
A one-day Festival Napa Valley summit on music, brain health, wellness, senior wellness, youth mental health, and community well-being. Renée Fleming is listed as the keynote speaker (serious Opera credentials)

Details

Festival Live!
This is the free one to know about. Festival Live! features students and faculty from Festival Napa Valley’s Blackburn Music Academy, and reservations are recommended, which is a small price to pay for free chamber music downtown.

Details

Opening Night: From Beethoven to Getty to Dylan
This is the bigger Friday night festival option, moving from Beethoven to American songwriting. I do not know how often Beethoven and Bob Dylan end up in the same sentence, but apparently this weekend is one of those times.

Details

Here’s the calendar link with all these events: Link: https://festivalnapavalley.org/calendar/

Here are a couple great local plans that are almost suspiciously simple: take a walk and let someone else give it a little structure.

This weekend has two good versions of that: one for anyone who wants to learn the trees at Fuller Park, and one for families who want the rare kid activity where “go outside” and “read a book” are not competing instructions.

Basically, touch grass, but with a bit of curriculum.

July Fuller Park Tree Walk
You have probably walked through Fuller Park a bunch of times and thought, oh cool plaque, what a neat tree. This is the version where someone tells you what it all actually means, which is either charming or a sign that you are entering your local-history era.

Details

Napa StoryWalk at Skyline Wilderness Park
The StoryWalk puts pages from a children’s book along a trail, which is basically the rare kid activity where “go outside” and “read a book” are mixing and matching. This is the last weekend to catch it at Skyline before it moves to other parks later in the summer.

Details

For those of you who do not know, every Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon, Napa has this thing called a farmers market where local vendors sell produce and flowers and baked goods and-

No, I am kidding.

Yes, you know. Obviously.

But hey, if you somehow do not know, yes, we do have a great farmers market. What I mostly wanted to do here, which I do not think I have ever included before, is point out a few other nearby markets worth knowing about too.

I also have not personally been to the Sonoma one yet, and I am actually going for the first time, so maybe this is less of a public service announcement and more of me trying to justify a small field trip.

Either way, here are a few market options around town.

Napa Farmers Market
The obvious one, yes, but still one of the best Saturday morning anchors in town. Good produce, good people-watching.

Details

Sonoma Friday Morning Farmers’ Market
This one is a year-round Friday morning market at Arnold Field, and it feels like a good small field trip if you want the weekend to start a little early. I have never actually been to this one, so we will see if Sonoma has been quietly hiding the good peaches.

Details

Calistoga Farmers Market
The up-valley Saturday option, especially useful if your weekend is already pointed toward Calistoga. It is right by the Community Center across from City Hall, which is exactly where a farmers market should be if we are being honest.

Details

And the answer to today’s trivia:

D. Alston Park.

Skyline Wilderness Park is the biggest local park around Napa, coming in at about 850 acres, so that one felt a little too obvious.

But second place is Alston Park, at about 157 acres, which is still pretty massive and probably deserves more credit than it gets.

So that is the weekend: Festival Napa Valley if you want the big cultural thing, Fuller Park or Skyline if you want a walk with a little structure, and farmers markets if your main plan is buying fruit somewhere slightly different and pretending that counts as meal prep.

See you Monday.