{"id":906,"date":"2018-03-28T17:56:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T17:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=906"},"modified":"2018-03-28T17:56:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T17:56:11","slug":"napas-oxbow-public-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=906","title":{"rendered":"Napa\u2019s Oxbow Public Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oxbow Public Market\u2019s (http:\/\/oxbowpublicmarket.com<\/a>\/) name comes from the shape of the Napa River.\u00a0 The course of a river may encounter an obstruction, causing the river to bend in a U-shape around it.\u00a0 This creates a widening of the river, effectively a lake.\u00a0 This is called an oxbow, because it resembles the U-shaped yolk placed around the necks of oxen.\u00a0 Such an oxbow occurs in the Napa River, at the town of Napa and this is where they have erected the Oxbow Public Market.<\/p>\n

It is various things for different people: a place to buy food and wine, a tourist attraction and a site for casual and slightly more formal dining.\u00a0 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person who loves good wine loves good food as well, so the Oxbow Public market has become quite a magnet for those who take a little time away from wineries to venture into town.\u00a0 As the weekends can be awfully crowded on Route 29<\/a> and the Silverado Trail, Napa Valley visitors might find it a good idea to visit Napa<\/a> instead, making the market quite an attractive stop.<\/p>\n

For one thing, the views over the oxbow are quite beautiful.\u00a0 As you cross the First Street bridge approaching the market, you see the broadening of the river, and the buildings alongside it.\u00a0 It is a \u00a0particularly attractive view at sunset.<\/p>\n

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The Napa River oxbow.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the Iron Pig.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The interior of the market is a mix of kiosks and booths hosting purveyors of fruits, vegetables, sausages, wines, books, ground coffee, bread and spices.\u00a0 Local people actually do shop there, but a great number of the people you\u2019ll find in the Oxbow Public Market are tourists.\u00a0 Of course, the same can be said of New York\u2019s Chelsea Market, Seattle\u2019s Pike Street Market or Victor Hugo Market in Toulouse, France, Barcelona\u2019s La Boqueria, or other urban markets around the world.\u00a0\u00a0 For the visitors, ice cream, hamburgers, chocolates, cupcakes and pizza are available.<\/p>\n

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The interior of the Oxbow Public Market. Photo courtesy of Madison Marquette.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then again, if you\u2019re a real foodie (and most wine lovers are, so we\u2019ve observed) you like looking at the food available in any city you\u2019re visiting, even if you don\u2019t have a kitchen nearby to cook it in.\u00a0 It is certainly something we do in our travels.\u00a0 If nothing else, seeing all the culinary bounty fires up the appetite.\u00a0 When that occurs, there are restaurants in the market as well.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are many restaurants in Napa outside the market, some of them quite good.\u00a0 The point is, you don\u2019t have to eat at the market but you can.\u00a0 Much like going wine tasting, it\u2019s as much about the experience as the food itself.\u00a0 And in this case, the Oxbow Public Market is symbolic of the revival of Napa, which had been left behind as Yountville and St. Helena, up the highway a bit, became meccas for food lovers on a wine tasting vacation.\u00a0 Those are indeed great destinations, but the town of Napa should be included in your Napa Valley wine trips.\u00a0 And the Oxbow Public market is fine place to see when you\u2019re in town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Oxbow Public Market\u2019s (http:\/\/oxbowpublicmarket.com\/) name comes from the shape of the Napa River.\u00a0 The course of a river may encounter an obstruction, causing the river to bend in a U-shape around it.\u00a0 This creates a widening of the river, effectively a lake.\u00a0 This is called an oxbow, because it resembles the U-shaped yolk placed … Continue reading Napa\u2019s Oxbow Public Market<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":909,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}