San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Picturesque Petaluma perfect for getaway
The sun may shine on the first days of summer by the bay, but anyone who lives here knows what happens next — weeks of fog. Gray days in the morning, fog rolling over the hills in the afternoon.
It’s mildly depressing. San Francisco looks sad and dreary in gray.
So in July and August, many city people take a short break, a quick getaway to somewhere where the sun is shining. This summer, something new is on the getaway list, a quick trip on a new train to Petaluma, where the sun always shines and the locals are friendly.
Petaluma is the hidden gem of the North Bay, and getting there on the new SMART train is half the fun.
Why Petaluma? A lot of reasons. Petaluma is both old and new, has a charming old-fashioned downtown, a newish beer garden, an Irish pub, a big bookstore and a little river. And it’s only 31 minutes by rail from San Rafael, the southern end of the SMART train line.
Officially, the railroad is called Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit. Some smart marketing genius gave it a snappy name. One of these years it will run from Cloverdale to Larkspur. Service from San Rafael to the Santa Rosa airport started last year, and it’s perfect for a short jaunt. SMART is not like BART. The trains don’t run that often. There are 17 trains each way on weekdays, but only five on weekends. So you have to plan ahead. It’s not your father’s railroad: Your cash is no good on SMART. You need a Clipper card or an e-ticket app to ride. Check it out on the internet.
The trains — usually one big diesel railcar — are sleek and new. On the ride north, SMART runs through the backyards of San Rafael, past the glorious Frank Lloyd Wright Marin Civic Center, up through Novato and then out in open country, past pastures and marshlands, a kind of rail back road through Marin and Sonoma counties. The ride is smooth. All trains have their own sound while under way: BART screeches, Caltrain roars, but SMART has a low growl, like a friendly dog.
A late-morning train arrives in Petaluma in time for lunch. It’s a three-block stroll from the railroad station to downtown, which looks like a movie set — old buildings lovingly restored, with a mix of old and new businesses inside.
There’s a bit of a renaissance. The Hotel Petaluma has been brought back to its 1923 glory, and a new Hampton Inn in an old brick silk mill opens this summer.
The town is full of surprises. There is Theatre Square along the river. There are a dozen or so sidewalk pianos that anyone can play. The man behind the pianos is John Maher, who wears a derby hat and calls himself Petaluma Pete. He plays on sidewalks downtown Friday and Saturday.
“I’ve heard people make beautiful music on these pianos,” Petaluma Pete said. “And I heard kids just really banging on them.”
lt’s all fine with him, because the pianos, painted in bright colors, are part of a civic campaign to turn Petaluma’s riverfront into a pedestrian promenade.
The town got its start on the river, a 13-milelong tidal stream that once had regular steamboat service to San Francisco, like a kind of mini-Mississippi.
The stream got rebranded by an act of Congress in 1959. “It used to be just a creek and the Eisenhower administration turned it into a river,” said Colleen Rustad of the local tourist agency. “But it’s the greatest slough on Earth.”
“Petaluma has this great river running through it, but it’s been neglected too long,” Petaluma Pete said.
The river is silted up with mud at low tide, and the riverfront is graced, if that is the word, with an old railroad trestle that appears to be on the edge of collapse. “It’s derelict,” Petaluma Pete said, “and we need to turn it into something positive.”
There will be a Rivertown Revival festival on July 14 with music and art, and a ragtime piano festival later in the summer, both designed to celebrate the river.
After a pleasant afternoon, we headed back to the depot, just in time for the late-afternoon train back to reality.
Terry Schank and his son Nate were aboard. They live in Santa Rosa and were headed to Marin to watch a summer basketball game, catch dinner, perhaps in San Rafael, and go back home on the last train of the day.
“Just over an hour back and forth to Santa Rosa,” Terry Schank said. “No traffic, no worries. It’s easy, and it’s nice.”