A Home With A Waterfall In Capitola

In late 2010 we received another interesting exchange offer through Homeexchange.com:

LISTING PROPOSED FOR EXCHANGE:

Luxurious, Ocean-View, Villa with Hot-Tub, Sauna and more!

Your Lake Tahoe home looks gorgeous!  We would be thrilled to do an exchange (non-simultaneous is fine) with our home in the Santa Cruz area on the sunny side of the Monterey Bay.  Please let us know if you're interested.  We are especially interested in going to Lake Tahoe in the winter, and our first choice would be New Years if by a remote chance it is still available.  We'd also be happy to trade anytime in the Winter or Spring.  

Kindest Regards,

Jeremy & Randy

Well as Jeremy and Randy had guessed, our Lake Tahoe home was occupied over New Years 2011, not by renters, but by our son and his friends who had an amazing time in the best snow that Tahoe had received in many years.  However, the rest of the season was available and Jeremy decided upon a three day weekend later in January to enjoy some skiing over his birthday. 

Tahoe Home In January

They had a wonderful weekend at our home with plenty of snow, and even asked if they could come back for another exchange at a later date. We decided to visit the Santa Cruz area in the fall when the sun shines brightly with hopefully little fog over the Monterey Bay, and would let them know at a later date if we wished to do more exchanges.

In October we decided to visit Jeremy's "ocean view villa" in Soquel (next door to Santa Cruz), and invited my daughter Gillian and her friend who live in San Francisco to join us. We decided to arrive on Friday to play a round of golf before we got to the house, and Gillian would join us on Saturday afternoon to spend the night with us.  Early Friday morning we packed up the old faithful Travelair and flew 45 minutes down to the Watsonville Airport, where there was no fog, and lot of sun!  Flying into the Monterey area can be tricky, as more likely than not there is fog, but this weekend was perfect, just as we had hoped when we picked the October date.

After playing a challenging round of golf at the beautiful Seascape Golf Course in Aptos we drove over to our new home.  Even though we had seen pictures of the house, which looked wonderful, I was nervous, as I always am, whenever we pull up to our exchange homes, not exactly sure what we will be getting.  We found the villa, which was a located on a hill with an extremely steep driveway (sorry about the bumper, Hertz Rental Car!) and entered the home to find it everything we had hoped for, including an indoor Koi pond and waterfall.

Living Room With Beautiful Views And Indoor Koi Pond

Multi Tered Home 

It had four stories with lots of stairs, but gorgeous decks and views, beautifully decorated and immaculately clean. Jeremy had been concerned that the deck which their hot tub was located on had started leaking, so they had to tear out the hot tub and work on the deck, so we would not have use of the hot tub, but I assured him that it would not bother us at all, and we could always use the sauna in the master bedroom instead!  

Master Bath Tub/Shower

After exploring the home and taking a shower in the unusual tub/shower in the master bathroom, we headed off to one of Jeremy's dinner recommendations, Michael's On Main, in Aptos, where we had a lovely dinner on the deck listening to a classic oldies band.  Felt like we had traveled back in time to Santa Cruz during the 60's.

Michaels On Main in Aptos

On Saturday we decided to play golf at Del Monte Golf Course in Monterey, about a 25 minute drive from where we were staying and had another lovely day, though the fog did stick around for most of the round of golf. 

Golfing At Del Monte Golf Course

 Gillian and Anthony arrived shortly after we returned from playing golf and we all enjoyed wine and cheese on the deck as the sun set over the bay before heading out to dinner at the Shadowbrook Restaurant in Capitola.

Gillian On Our Deck Enjoying Cheese And Wine

  

Shadowbrook Restaurant Cable Car Ride Down The Hill

Shadowbrook is a must try if you are in the area, but save your pennys, as it is not cheap!  Located on the Soquel Creek in Capitola, one may choose to take the little cable car down the hill to the restaurant or walk the lovely path surrounded by blooming gardens and lights.  I believe the restaurant, open since 1947, has four levels terraced down the hillside once you get off of the cable car, all with views of the creek and gardens.  And of course I can't forget about the wonderful food served here, as well as the unique environment from which to enjoy it.  

Zelda's On The Beach

Sunday morning rolled around, and in the fall that means 49er football, so off we drove to the cute beach town of Capitola to find a place to eat breakfast and watch the game.  Zeldas On The Beach was the place to be!  Even though we had to be inside to watch the game, we were still able to enjoy the views of the seagulls and children playing on the beach on a warm October day while watching our team win a great game.  

The Colors of Capitola

After a walk around Capitola we ended the day on the roof top bar/restaurant of The Wharf House, listening to more great 60's music, enjoying the sunshine, a beer, and of course some freshly caught sea food.  What a great way to end a lovely weekend on the Monterey Bay.

The Wharf House Entertainment

We just might have to take Jeremy up on his offer to do another exchange.  One could get use to this kind of weekend, only a short 45 minute flight from home.

Exchanging For A Honeymoon

No, I am not going on a honeymoon . . . . mine was 36 years ago!  But my son Van, and his future wife, Megan, who are getting married in two months were talking about honeymoon locations last year when I thought about the possibilities of finding a home exchange for them.  They jumped at the idea and proceeded to go online and check out all of the amazing locations available to them around the world on Homeexchange.com.  Over 40,000 listing in 147 countries.  Now that's a lot to choose from!

Van and Megan decided they would like to visit San Sebastian in the Basque country of Spain where they could enjoy the new gourmet cuisine it has become famous for, as well as the traditional tapas in the old quarter, the beach, art museums, and the spanish countryside.  Unfortunately there were not a lot of properties to choose from, but I  was able to send out ten exchange offers eight months before their wedding to homes in San Sebastian and the surrounding countryside of Spain and waited to see what would come back.  I only received one potential exchange response.

Apartment In San Sebastian Spain

However, the one response I received was Van's favorite property.  Chema owned two apartments in this lovely historic apartment building in the middle of San Sebastian, within walking distance to the beach, and was interested in a possible exchange for our Costa Rica condo.  We all thought this would be perfect, but it proved to be too good to be true, as Chema decided a month later that he was no longer interested in an exchange.  Now I was sent back to the drawing board to start broadening my search.

In the meantime, one day I received the following exchange offer:

Hello,

We are a french family and we are very interested to know Costa Rica (we love the tropical climate and often preserved nature and human beings met in these countries). Wonderful land , we are sure !

Your ad draws our\'s attention and seems very interesting.

We live in south west of France (in \"les Landes\" , a preserved region) near the atlantic ocean (3 min by car / 10 min by bike.  We have done 4 exchanges for three years and all of them were wonderful.

We are searching an exchange (simultaneous or not) during this year 2012 : between 17/18 of april to 01 of May.

Thank you very much to have payed attention to this mail and we are waiting for the answer . See you soon.

Best regards

GILLES AND VIRGINIE

I immediately located where Gilles and Virginie's home was on a map  and realized that it was about an hour from San Sebastian, Spain,  where Van wished to stay.  I asked Van and Megan if they would be interested in Southern France instead of Northern Spain and they said of course!  Another exchange was now set into motion!

The Proposed French Cottage

I explained to Gilles and Virginie that this exchange would be for my son and his new bride and asked if that would be acceptable to them.  They were very happy to hear from me, agreed to the exchange, and asked to Skype with me in order to get to know each other better.  After a 45 minute conversation via Skype I felt like Gilles and Virginie were now my new friends.  They were very excited to have Van and Megan stay at their home, wanted to meet them upon their arrival to show them around, and give them tourist information about the area.  They were also excited to be able to return to Costa Rica where they had been several years before, and this time to bring their children with them.  

Sunset At Messanges, France

In eight weeks Van and Megan will be traveling to the little village of Messanges, France to enjoy this sunset, some Bordeaux wine, lots of wonderful French food, explore the Basque region of Spain and France, and have a honeymoon of a life time, all thanks to a home exchange offer from across the other side of the world.  Stay tuned for pictures of their trip when they return. I'm sure there will be lots!