Since it's home to well-known companies that include Adobe, eBay, and Cisco Systems along with many others that employ the best and the brightest, most people associate Silicon Valley with the high-tech industry, not romantic getaways. Yet San Jose, as California’s third-largest city and the capital city of Silicon Valley, is a good pick for a honeymoon destination. Its gentle climate (average temperature is 81 degrees) and easygoing attitude add to the appeal.

Perhaps to keep those big brains stimulated, San Jose is culturally endowed with concerts, plays, museums, galleries, a professional hockey team and a state university all within walking distance of downtown. A drive from downtown, lively Santana Row is a three-block stretch of shops, day spas, cafés, restaurants, and clubs. 

Art and More
The San Jose Museum of Art’s permanent collection of 1,400 artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries has a special focus on West Coast art. Near downtown, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum offers the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in the West. And Kaleid Gallery features work from more than 60 fine artists and designers who range from young and emerging to seasoned and well-accomplished. All of the art work on display there is for sale. 

And for those who can't imagine life without computers, iPhones, iPads and the like, The Tech Museum of Innovation celebrates scientific brilliance and looks to the future.

Where to Stay
Visiting couples have their choice of reasonably priced classic, four-star hotels such as the Fairmont San Jose (check rates) and Hotel De Anza (check rates) as well as even more affordable modern ones.

 

An added plus: San Jose is less than an hour’s drive south of chic San Francisco. So couples looking for a Bay Area experience can settle in San Jose and still easily enjoy the treasures of that city as well.

Tall Trees, Wide Beaches, Uncrowded Vineyards 
Lovers of California wine can find numerous vineyards a few minutes' drive from San Jose in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The growing area is less commercial and far less crowded than Napa Valley.

For those who also love the ocean, Santa Cruz’s wide beaches, boardwalk and eateries can be reached by crossing the mountains on scenic Route 9; it is less than an hour from San Jose.

Several redwood forests, where visitors may feel like Lilliputians in the shadow of the towering trees, ring San Jose. Among them is Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Its nearly 5,000 acres encompass 15 miles of hiking, horse, dog and biking trails; campsites; birding; and seasonal trout and steelhead fishing in the San Lorenzo River.

Honeymoon Haven
The park’s oldest trees are between 1,400 and 1,800 years old. One living tree with a hollowed-out base was actually was used as a honeymoon suite by the resort that occupied this area in the late 1800s. The entrance to the abandoned room has grown over a bit, so visitors need to scrunch to get in but once inside can stand straight.

In the same way you two may visit now, generations of California residents have sought out this awe-inspiring part of the country as a destination for love.