Monday, August 15, 2011

California Road Trip of a Lifetime Day 6 - Solvang, Santa Barbara, Malibu, Santa Monica, Los Angeles

We woke up in Solvang and enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the hotel. It was free of charge and even included “eggs with cheese in the middle" ...my husband quickly corrected me by telling me they were called “omelets.” My bad!  Nonetheless the breakfast was good and free, much better than the last not so much so-called deluxe continental breakfast we had in Monterey. We then walked the main street of Solvang. Solvang is said to be the “Danish capital of the U.S.” It is a very very neat city lined with really neat boutiques, restaurants, wine tastings, and yummy bakeries.  If you are ever in the area, you should really stop through Solvang.  It's so neat!








We shopped a little and then decided to do a wine tasting. There were little wine tasting places on every corner, or so it seemed! And I hear there are some pretty awesome wineries into the countryside. The wine tasting was neat! We tried 6 different wines, saving the best for last...the dessert wine..Muscrat...delicious, didn't even taste like wine, and from what I hear, that's the problem??!? We also got to taste a warm cider wine made out of merlot, apple juice, brown sugar, and spices and it was amazing! Would be perfect for winter blizzards.



We didn't do the tasting at the Wandering Dog Wine Bar, but we stopped in to see the "dog."  They have a black lab there that greets all the customers.  Andrew had to get his "dog fix" for the day. 

After a few hours in Solvang, we headed south to Santa Barbara. We ate lunch outside on the patio of a neat little sushi place. It was great sushi and a decent price! A little limited on time, we decided to only walk a few blocks around the town. Santa Barbara is gorgeous! Cute spanish style town with lots of great shopping and beautiful scenery. Andrew was in Heaven ;) It would be a great town to spend a few days, that's for sure!  I can't wait to go back!






Next stop...LA. We continued to drive down PCH 1. We got some awesome recommendations from Andrews friend Rachel on what to do next. We passed through Malibu and decided to stop in Santa Monica. On our way Andrew noticed all the cars that drove by...Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Maserati, Range Rover...it seemed to be a requirement to live in this city.  In Santa Monica, we explored the Third Street Promenade, ate dinner at a little mexican joint, named Baja Bud's, pretty good food, very fresh, very fast. I recommend the nachos. The promenade was pretty cool too. It is a car free street with...you guessed it...shopping and more shopping, with a scattering of restaurants and such. Seems like a pretty neat town. We saw the SM Pier from a distance, but decided to bypass an upclose and personal look, since we had just seen something similar in Santa Cruz.

We found a place to stay near LAX, and decided to crash early, we were exhausted! I believe the hotel we stayed at was called Wingate Wyndham Hotel. It was the nicest hotel thus far and similar in price range to all the others. The bed was comfy too!

All-in-all today was another good day. Pretty scenery down the coast, of course, and a cool change of pace.

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