Dotsie, for a first-time visitor to California with one week to spend, I'd say San Francisco should absolutely be your target.

It's a physically gorgeous city with history, architecture, ethnic neighborhoods, views and restaurants galore. It's vibrant, colorful, brilliant. Beaches, bridges, hills, painted ladies (Victorian and otherwise), boat trips, cable cars, surfing, shopping. I could go on and on.

And, just outside the city, there's an array of day trips to choose from. Take the ferry across the bay to Sausalito. (I've walked back to San Francisco from Sausalito -- around the headlands and over the Golden Gate Bridge. A long, windy walk, but it was great fun.) You can travel south on Route 1 to Monterey, taking in incredible coastal scenery and towns enroute. Or, head north over the Golden Gate to the Marin County headlands and redwoods. Keep going north, and you come to Point Reyes and Bodega Bay, hauntingly beautiful and remote-feeling (passing glorious Stinson Beach that I mentioned in an earlier post). And, of course, there's wine country, if vineyard-visiting is something that interests you.

One week for a California first-timer? San Francisco, hands down. You could spend a month and still miss half.