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It’s the state’s largest town square
Sonoma Plaza covers eight acres in the center of Sonoma, California, about 45 miles north of San Francisco. It’s the largest plaza of its kind in the state, and it earned National Historic Landmark status back in 1961.
Mature trees, a rose garden, sculptures and water features fill the green space at the center, with a play area for kids tucked in too.
Shops, galleries and historic buildings line all four sides, and you can walk the whole square without ever needing your car. What you find along the way goes back nearly 200 years.
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General Vallejo built this town from scratch in 1835
General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo laid out the plaza and the surrounding street grid in 1835, turning a remote mission outpost into a proper Mexican-style pueblo…