Day 10: From San Luis Obispo over Solvang and Santa Barbara to Los Angeles

The morning of Friday 7th started with a solid breakfast, as usual consisting of our oatmeal, fruits and bagels plus what the house had to offer. In this case the addition was sourdough pancakes. We left the cosy little hostel headed south on Highway 1 once again, but soon left it to drive inlands. I had planned a stop of which Helene knew very little - Solvang. A peculiar little place. It is a Danish settlement from 1911, and thus we arrived there on one of their first days of centennial celebration. Didn't mean anything for our layover there, but still fun to consider. :)

It was fun to drive into the town, seeing all the Danish names of restaurants and streets, and little houses with timber framing. It might have been fake (painted on), but who cares. It looked fine from a distance. One of our first stops was the tourist information, as we needed a map and suggestions on what to do there.  In the information we met a nice man, Dean, who has family in Denmark and who spoke a little bit of Danish. He started talking about tebikes, frikadeller, flæskesteg, etc., Danish dishes that I miss so much. Hehe, but soon I will be back in my Danish kitchen! Dean also gave us some directions, and we headed out with our new map, two postcards with pictures of æbleskiver, and a voucher to get a free bag in one of the local shops. Its a cool one, a canvas bag with an imprint that changes color in the sunshine! 

Another cool stop of ours was the local museum, which according to the guide book is the only thing in Solvang that will tell something real about the story of the Danes in Solvang. The museum is called Elverhøj, and again we met people with Danish ancestors. Agnes was one of them, or well she was actually born in Denmark herself. I think she enjoyed talking with us in Danish, and she also showed us around in the little museum, pointing out her favorite items. So nice. :) 

After having spent way more time in Solvang than we planned, we headed off again this time towards Santa Barbara. It was Lise, whom we met in the hostel in Monterey, who suggested that we stopped there as well. We found a tourist information and asked for a map. Once well equipped also with suggestions for sights, we headed downtown. Charming little city, though I can imagine how it must be packed with tourists in the summer. We saw the court house, build in a Spanish style with loads of tiles and wall murals. Also there is a tower where we headed for a view of the city. Another good vista point was a park on a mountain side, which proved to be much harder to find than we thought it would be. But after twisting and turning on the same little roads for a while, we managed to get on to the right one, and find the park. And the view was worth it - we could see the whole city, the ocean, and the mountains around. 

After driving back to the city to refuel on some gorgeous fish and chips, we were off towards the destination of the day, Los Angeles. The sunset scenery on the way was amazing! We arrived to LA around 7 PM, and found parking and our room in our Hollywood hostel. After unpacking, we headed out to see Hollywood Boulevard in the dark, and came home with some groceries for a light dinner.