One of Walla Walla’s ongoing challenges is a lack of visitor accommodations on busy weekends. While more rooms are coming ~ in 2007, Comfort Inn & Suites added 80 plus rooms and this fall, Hampton Inn is slated to open more than 100 rooms ~ it doesn’t ease the pain of getting here now and not finding any vacancies or worse, staying home because you couldn’t find a room.

One of the best ways to experience Walla Walla is to start your visit midweek when rooms are plentiful, and both restaurants and tasting rooms are open. With more than 100 wineries, there are far too many to visit in just one trip, so plan to get the lay of the city and return often.

I hold tight to advice a good friend gave me on my first trip to New York City. Fortunately, I was traveling with someone who knew his way around. As there was no way to see it all in one visit, we carefully chose a few special things: ‘Cats’ at the Winter Garden Theatre, a ‘must-see’ restaurant, shopping with lots of time to walk through the park. I knew then that I would keep returning to the city and each time, I would discover new experiences to add to my list of memories.

With that in mind, here is the our guide for a mid-week visit to Walla Walla.

Start your trip early Wednesday with plenty of wandering time before arriving in Walla Walla. If you are coming from the west on Hwy 12, it is easy to begin in Lowden at some of the valley’s best-known wineries. The plan is to coincide your arrival in downtown for late afternoon. Check in to your hotel, motel or bed and breakfast and then drop by Vintage Cellars, 10 N 2nd Avenue. Every Wednesday, they feature a local winery, and throughout the early evening, it becomes a place for winemakers, winery staff and other local residents to drop by and show liquid support for the winery host of the evening. If you haven’t mapped out your next day’s itinerary, ask any of the locals where they would go, and within a few minutes you will have a custom designed tour of favorite tasting rooms.

By 7:00 PM, it will be time to grab something to eat. Vintage Cellars offers light fare and around the corner, the venerable Merchants Deli has ‘Spaghetti Night’ each Wednesday. More upscale dining can be found at the restaurants that put WW on the culinary map: Whitehouse Crawford, 26Brix, Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen and Creektown Cafe (all appreciate reservations). In addition, The Marc at the Marcus Whitman Hotel, T. Maccarone’s, Backstage Bistro and Sweet Basil Pizza (watch it pizza hounds, they close at 8pm) are all within easy walking distance of downtown lodging.

While many of the smaller wineries are open only on Saturdays, a growing number of tasting rooms are open through the week and even small wineries are amiable to setting up appointments.

Listed below are the tasting rooms open Thursday through the weekend.

Choose an area of town, plan on a minimum 30-45 minutes at each winery, drink plenty of water and be sure to stop for lunch. Happy tasting!

West: Woodward Canyon, L’Ecole No. 41, Cougar Crest (new location), Reininger, Three Rivers Winery
Just before downtown: Amavi Cellars, Canoe Ridge Winery, Skylite Cellars and Whitman Cellars
Downtown: Ash Hollow, Bergevin Lane, Forgeron Cellars, Preston Premium Wines, Sapolil Cellars, Seven Hills Winery, Sleight of Hand, Spring Valley Vineyards, Walla Walla Village Winery, and Waterbrook
Airport: Dunham Cellars, Russell Creek, Patrick M. Paul Vineyards, Buty
South: Basel Cellars Estate Winery, Isenhower Cellars, Northstar, Pepper Bridge, Saviah, Trust Cellars, Watermill Winery, Waters Winery and Zerba Cellars

This posting originally ran in Spring 2006, but it is a timely topic and has been updated to include wineries who have added Thursday to their list of days open. Heather