Sonora, CA

Sonora is the seat of Tuolumne County and the biggest town in this part of the Sierra foothills. Washington Street runs through the middle of it, lined with brick and iron-shuttered buildings from the 1850s that are still shops, bars, bakeries and a theatre rather than a museum piece. It is where you stop before Pinecrest, Dodge Ridge, Columbia or Yosemite, and where you stop again on the way home.

From Arnold it is about thirty-five miles: down Highway 4 to Angels Camp, then south on Highway 49. Fifty minutes, and the last stretch is the prettiest part of the drive.

Give it an hour on foot. Washington Street is walkable end to end, with bookshops, antiques, coffee, a good bakery or two and restaurants that stay open later than anything in Arnold. The Tuolumne County Museum sits in the old county jail at the north end and is worth twenty minutes for the gold-rush and railroad material.

The Sierra Repertory Theatre stages shows through the year in Sonora and Fallon House at Columbia, which makes for an unusual evening if you are already down the hill. Programmes and times change — check their current schedule before planning around it.

Just outside town, Indigeny Reserve is an apple orchard and cider works on a few hundred acres, with a tasting room, picnic lawns and a short walking loop through the trees — an easy afternoon that suits mixed groups because there is something to do besides taste.

Cover's Apple Ranch, over toward Tuolumne, is the other side of the same story: a farm store, pies, a bakery and a small ranch to walk around, at its best in autumn when the apples come in. Hours are seasonal at both, so check before you drive over.

If you want to stretch your legs without leaving town, Dragoon Gulch is a small city park on the hillside above Sonora with a few miles of easy loop trail through oak and grass and a view back over the rooftops. It is at its best in spring, when the grass is green and the wildflowers are out, and pleasant in winter; in high summer it is hot and exposed by mid-morning.

Sonora is a town to spend an afternoon in rather than a base — it sits low in the foothills, so summer afternoons run hot and there is no snow in winter. Staying up in Arnold gives you pine forest, cool nights and a hot tub, with Sonora, Columbia and Jamestown all under an hour away.