A Postcard from Oakland: A Relaxing Weekend in Oakland, California

When you think of the Bay area you probably think of San Francisco but just neighboring to San Francisco is the under-appreciated city of Oakland.

This article will cover everything we explored on our weekend trip to Oakland.

We landed in Oakland late on Saturday night, grabbed our bags and took the BART subway to the Oakland city center. We only had to transfer once and it was quick and easy, we had absolutely no problems taking the train. We would definitely recommend it since it was cheaper and faster than getting a Uber.

BART SUBWAY MAP

Our first day exploring happened to be on a Sunday, but we didn’t realize that our car rental place Budget Car Rental, 2428 Webster St was closed on this day. So we hopped back on the BART and took it to Fruitvale Station.

Since we both were craving two different things today Eric ordered pupusas at Pupusería Las Palmas, 3851 International Blvd. I ordered some tacos at El Huarache Azteca, 3842 International Blvd everything we had was delicious!

We found a churro stand Churros Mexicanos, East 12th Street that was making homemade churros so of course we had to stop for some. I got a vanilla filled churro and Eric got a chocolate filled churro, both were delicious but the vanilla one was the best!

We cut our day short and headed back to our hotel to relax after a long day.

The next day we made our way over to pick up our rental car, it was a beautiful sunny day with a cool breeze so our walk there was much more enjoyable.

We spent the entire day in Northern Oakland in the Adams Point neighborhood, there are some of the shops we shopped at while exploring:

Spectator Books, 4163 Piedmont Ave - Great variety of books with adorable greeting cards!

Surprise, 4048 Piedmont Ave - Perfect for finding a gift! Lots of knick-knacks!

Mercy Vintage, 4188 Piedmont Ave - Vintage shop with gorgeous accessories.

For lunch we got a beef and broccoli entree from Holly's Mandarin, 4080 Piedmont Ave and a gyro with a salad from Simply Greek restaurant, 4060 Piedmont Ave.

After having lunch we continued walking north on Piedmont Ave and found a European specialty foods store filled with yummy looking treats. We found these little ice cream cones interesting and got two for the road!

Euromix Delicatessen, 4301 Piedmont Ave

Today was our last day in Oakland, before we head down south to Carmel-by-the-Sea for a week. We drove north to Berkeley for lunch.

We stopped at Homeroom, 40th Street for some spicy mac and cheese and at Taco & Co., Durant Avenue for some tacos! We ordered to go and headed over to Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck Ave to have a picnic at this beautiful park.

We drove over to the Normandy Village to view the beautiful European style homes. It’s not really a village, just a few resident homes with limited parking.

Just before sunset we drove over to The Pergola at Lake Merritt, 599 El Embarcadero. There was plenty of street parking so we parked and walked over to Colonial Donuts, 3318 Lakeshore Ave.

While in the neighborhood, a few places to visit are:

Walden Pond Books, 3316 Grand Ave - Oakland’s largest independent bookstore!

Bay-Made, 3295 Lakeshore Ave - Cute store with gifts, plants, art supplies, and jewelry.

Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Ave - Beautiful theatre with neon signs!