May 20, 2008

Solvang ,CA - a homage to motherland

We decided to utilize Tanay's spring break and my project at Santa Monica as an opportunity to visit some of the places which we had missed during our Dec-2006 visit to LA. Accordingly we decided to drive down to LA and en route decided to do a short stop over at Solvang the "Danish Capital of America,". We had heard about this town from some friends and found out that it has featured as one of the “10 Most Beautiful Small Towns in the Western United States”.

Surfing on the net we found that Solvang’s history dates back to 1911 when adventurous Danish-Americans traversed the plains from Iowa to establish a settlement in the golden state of California. They purchased 9,000 sun-drenched acres of the former Rancho San Carlos de Jonata and situated their new community adjacent to the historic Old Mission Santa InĂ©s.

So with this information in the bag on March20,2008 we finally drove from Fremont to Solvang a long 4 hrs drive which was hardly noticed as we soaked ourself in the beautiful sites on the scenic and historic route of Highway 101 and Pacific Coast Highway1 which was a beautiful experience. To make this trip more lovely Aruna put on the romantic songs of dear Kishorda and Yesudas which made us both feel young and romantic and the kids cooperated sleeping thru the whole drive.

When we reached this town nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley wine country on California's Central Coast (approximately thirty minutes north of Santa Barbara) we suddenly felt that we have reached a old village town of Europe not yet touched by modernization. The drive had made us hungry so before exploring the town we had lunch at one of the restaurants serving Danish style sandwiches and soup .
Solvang,a Danish settlement in CA

Our tummies full we started exploring the pedestrian-friendly village and found that it is home to some bakeries, restaurants, and merchants selling wares all of which offer a taste and a flair which is purely Danish. The architecture of many of the buildings with - its blue & green roof tops and a plastic stork (a sign of luck) , the town's ambiance with gentle rolling windmills , horsedrawn carriages and family bicycles all strive to capture the Danish heritage. This actually was the intention of the original settlers and their descendants who even today have closely protected their Danish culture and language which has passed down the generations .

By 4.30 pm we had completed our tour and as we sat in the car to drive to LA I could not but admire the Danes effort to offer homage to their motherland.

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