Brewed Awakenings, Roundup a Latte, Grounds for Perfection, Espresso Yourself and Mocha Motion are just a few of the catchy/kitschy names for coffee shops on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.  I love coffee, but more, I love the ritual of coffee and am a sucker for the drive-through. It’s still novel to me and is a treat every time.

We travel to Sequim, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula often to visit my in-laws, who retired there from Southern California. It’s in a banana belt, sunny, and the lavender capital of the U.S.  The town is set in a valley. You can see snow-topped mountains from the Olympic National Forest and Park on one side and the Bay on the other side.

Our days are filled with blackberry picking, jam making, biking, hiking and just enjoying the peace and quiet this somewhat remote, unplugged spot offers. I usually get up early and practice yoga on the deck and stay up late reading, an indulgence for me these days. So, when there, I often switch from my regular decaf to caf and look forward all year to frequenting the various, hilariously named, drive-through coffee spots in the area. Prices are no cheaper than SF, LA or NYC, but they do know how to make a good latte in these parts!

So, here’s what’s romantic about the Willows-Herb Farm pairing. Everything.

The Willows is  almost adjacent to the Herb Farm - an excellent location when you find yourself stumbling across to your lodgings after you have eaten and drunk more than you thought humanly possible. It is a very warm, welcoming kind of place with classic Northwest architecture but it does have more than it’s share of weddings in the summer, so you could find the lobby teaming with revelers. There is a “happening” kind of bar near the lobby (with a great wine selection) and a nice patio - but for a quiet moment, you’ll do best to go to a small sitting room on the second floor.

The lodge has two special Herb Farm suites (decorated by the owners of the restaurant) that look out on an intricate and fascinating herb garden of mass proportions. (The restaurant starts their dinner with an optional tour of the garden that I enjoyed way more than I thought I would). Our suite was very large with one of my main requirements for a romantic room - a two person tub. The decor was a bit much - you have got to like country decorating (leave no wall unadorned) but with comfortable chairs and a cozy couch and included  thoughtful amenities (a carafe of Port, an additional bottle of very nice red wine, a generous tray of cheese, nuts, dried fruit). We loved our evening there, but I also went and saw the inn’s other rooms, which were more Northwest Lodge style, and also had fireplaces and two person bathtubs. I liked them a lot.

It’s hard to do justice to the dinner. It starts at seven (after the tour of the herb garden) and it goes on for three hours. The portions are perfectly plated and small, but there are nine of them. There is a wine for each course and if you drink it up, they add more. The room is beautiful, the table sparkles with five or six different kinds of wine glasses and decorative plates. The servers are all serious food people in apprenticeships and the owner and his wife help serve, explain and MC the rendition of what you are about to eat. We were there for one of their 26 different menus - The 100 Mile Dinner - which means everything (including the salt!) had to be made within a hundred miles of the dining room. It was inventive and the staff and chef were obviously challenged and excited by the assignment. (How do I know? They all gathered in front of us at the start of the dinner and told the room that this was the hardest of all their dinners to accomplish.) They were all so obviously thrilled to be there, sharing their craft and their passion, that we felt they were having just as good a time making this dinner as we were having eating it.

From the start, including the guided tour of the garden to an informal walk through their 4000 plus bottle wine cellar, we felt the personal hand, taste and desire for excellence of everyone involved with the Herb Farm. That alone was pretty impressive, but of course it wouldn’t matter if the execution of the evening didn’t match up to it’s ambitions. Happily, I can say every course was  imaginative and delicious. (The menu is set but if you have dietary issues they will make sure your specific needs are met. In my case, I hate beets and told them over the phone when I made the reservation. No beet appeared on my side of the table).

So this is the perfect place to have a truly memorable evening.  Everyone, from the owner to your servers, knows your name. There are no screaming babies to disrupt your intimate reverie. The dinner is pricey and it is adult. (The Willows is moderately to expensively priced, unless you book one of the Herb Garden suites, which are quite expensive).

If you are in Seattle or visiting Seattle, it’s about a 30 to 40 minute ride from downtown. Check it out for an anniversary, a place to pop the question (no, he didn’t) or just because you are in love. If you go the Herb Garden definitely stay overnight at the Willows. You will kick yourself if you don’t.

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Pepper Schwartz serves as the AARP love and relationship ambassador and is the chief relationships expert at Perfectmatch.com.

The architecture was majestic, the history epic, but to see the area fixed up and yet still tattered on the edges was uplifting and depressing at the same time. I really got to absorb the information as I was doing some translations into French…stories of freed slaves, rent parties, jazz, the crack years and now the resurrection of the famed quarter.

Our guide was an animated actress/French expat who, despite her arrogant attitude, gave a great tour. We made a pit stop at the Schomburg Library, a public library that is a research center for Black Culture. My dad had done research there in the ’70s and ’80s and I had vague memories of visiting as a child. Then we headed to a church to witness and participate in a gospel-music-infused service.

I have always been intrigued by these tours, but as a native New Yorker I felt odd about it. It seemed voyeuristic, and quite frankly I felt it was a bit tacky. The French and Italians ate it up though, and the church was making a good living, so it seemed harmless, even a potentially good way to share black culture with  tourists. The service itself may have been staged for the visitors, but the players were mostly recovering addicts who had been saved.

There was something spiritually uplifting about their voices and stories. I was reluctant, but got into it and enjoyed the whole experience immensely. It was hot, and with sweat pouring down my back I decided to join in with the show, singing, swaying, clapping and amen-ing, giving the clients the best of American culture…after all, they seemed to love jazz/gospel and black history passionately and I wanted to support that.

After the sweat dried a bit, a fried-food fest followed at a nearby eatery. We stopped in front of the famous Apollo Theater for photo ops and got to ogle the Clinton Foundation headquarters. I took a small group shopping on 125th street for bargains. I still have mixed feeling about the whole thing but I’m glad the folks are making a decent living. It was, despite my misgivings, a truly American experience for foreigners and well worth the price of the ticket.