Hello All,
I have been sitting down to write this post for a while now and then got caught up with all the online deals going on this holiday season 😛
We have been planning a visit to this place in Southern California since summer but never made it back then. We finally decided to take that trip during the Thanksgiving break. We took a three day road trip covering three different places. The first place that we went to is this small Danish city called Solvang in the Santa Barbara county. Such a lovely city!! Really enjoyed the day we spent , looking at the windmills and experiencing the Danish aebleskiver.
We stayed at Hotel King Frederik Inn which was right at the center of the city. We started out early and we could actually experience the beauty of Danish architecture before it got all crowded that was around noon. We checked out the famous shoe store that has this giant shoe kept in front of their store. They did have some wooden clogs, how amazing is that! We did not visit any museums when we were there because we didn’t have time for that and also visiting museum with a toddler may not always be the best thing to do.
A walk through the famous Solvang Heritage Walk takes you to a lot of shops including the bakeries and chocolate stores. I must say Danish pastries are a sweet relish. We also checked out some of the other boutiques and of course we did try out Danish chocolates. It’s so different from other cities in America (Obviously, as it has an entirely different architecture) the experience was entirely different, in a good way. There is horse drawn trolley tours that take you along the city but we preferred walking around the city.
We then went to the playground so that the toddler could have some fun time of her own. There is a nice children’s playground called Sunny Fields which again, looked very different than the one’s we usually go, I would say like something from the fairytale. If you travel to Solvang with kids you cannot miss this playground 🙂
Our next stop was OstrichLand USA, a home for Ostriches and Emus. The place is just a few miles away from the city of Solvang. The place wasn’t too crowded and there are quite enough parking spaces. There is an entry fee of 6 USD and were given a bowlful of food to feed the birds. The way these huge birds munched on the food stretching their long necks to dig into the bowl,aww !! It was a scene worth watching ! The Emu’s were so large that I could’t believe they are actually birds.
The toddler enjoyed the whole experience and that’s what is important for us at this point in life.
This is definitely a weekend getaway from the San Francisco Bay area. We would love to visit again !