Santa Rosa - The Heart of California's Sonoma County
California Visitors' Center Sonoma County is one of the centers of California wine country, and Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma. So, on a trip to the area, I decided to make Santa Rosa my base of operations. It is centrally located in the county, and offers a wide range of restaurants and hotels. The land where Santa Rosa is today was the home of the Bitakomatara tribe of the Pomo people. Europeans settled in the area in the early 19th century. Santa Rosa was founded in 1833 by the Maria Ygnacia López de Carrillo , a member of the Carrillo family, who were highly connected in the Mexican-California ranch society and government. Today Santa Rosa is a slightly sprawling city of around 175,000 residents. Public domain via wikimedia commons I started my visit at Railroad Square, where the California Visitors’ Center located, inside the historic rail depot. The center is a wonderful resource, offering a range of local walking and driving tours in the county, along with the u...