Santana Row also pays attention to home décor; naturally, Crate & Barrel and the Container Store deliver their familiar brands of furnishing, the former with its functional and exquisitely fashioned objects and the latter making storage the hobby du jour. But it doesn’t stop there… on our way back to the car, I belatedly spotted a simply huge Sur La Table and was immediately sorry we hadn’t done that side of the street first. How can one possibly not indulge one’s culinary fantasies? As we think more upscale, we can always turn to Brookstone and then some names that were not familiar: Casa Adobe, Home Sanctuary, Kim3 Furnishings.

For the holidays, the Santana Row developers had some of the most expensive cars parked on the sidewalks with huge, red ribbons on them. I wonder how many of them were sold… you do hear a mélange of languages here, which makes me think this must be a tourist destination, as well.

Now, for my favorite parts of this four-block enclave:

Phillips Gallery at 333 Santana Row (408/246-8020)—surprised that I picked art?? Aside from the impossibly gorgeous glass sculptures are sculptures of glass and stone by a Zimbabwean artist Gideon Nyanhongo. I also absolutely loved the monochromatic floral paintings of one Jaline Pol. She builds on the paint with wild abandon and will create the same bouquet time and again using different colors, always with stunning results. I wanted all of them. Royo’s women were also here, as well as the whimsical works of Vladimir Kush. Simon Bull’s extreme close-ups of flowers reminded me too much of Georgia O’Keefe, and she’s one in a class by herself.

Anthropologie is also a favorite destination for me, mainly because it’s an experience and a culture in shopping. This emporium can have you island-shopping from sublime to ridiculous in less than ten steps.

And finally, I cannot resist a critical review of the hideous French spelling at wannabe restaurant Left Bank of simple words like "tourtes" and "specialités".