Our Piedmont Recreation Department Walking on Wednesdays group decided to celebrate the six month anniversary of our walks this week by going to a Piedmont saloon, or at least the site of a former Piedmont saloon. We had learned the history of this saloon from the "Piedmont History" article in the October 10th issue of the Piedmont Post. Fifteen walkers and two K-9 friends headed off to the corner of Grand and Linda Avenues where a restaurant named "A Mon Chateau" (My Castle) was built in 1882. It also had a beer garden on the Linda Avenue side of the restaurant where we posed for a group photo outside the office building at 1375 Linda Avenue that now occupies the site.
We were sorry that the saloon is now closed, and we could not partake in refreshments, but we enjoyed the walk anyway.
As you know, we have an informal objective of eventually walking ever Piedmont street and we visited some new ones on the walk that went down Magnolia to Jerome, Keefer Ct., Fairview, and Grand and Linda Avenues, and then back to our Exedra starting point via Grand, Wildwood, and Magnolia Avenues.
On the way to the "saloon," we took a side excursion up Keefer Ct., which provided another opportunity for a group photo in front of a lovely home with an usual and very beautiful cactus garden.
On the return back to the Exedra we stopped at the small, but very beautiful redwood grove park at Wildwood and Nova Avenues. We also discovered Larmer Court off of Magnolia Avenue. It was noted that everyone has probably driven past Larmer Court hundreds of times, but never noticed it, let along walked this charming short street, and that walking does have its advantages over driving.