Visiting A Nice Little Danish Town… While On A Californian Road Trip

Denmark is only 90 minutes away from Hamburg, so for me visiting that country has never been much of a big deal. If you are travelling the Californian coast, however, driving into a Danish village certainly gets really exciting.

While in Santa Barbara, I first heard of Solvang or, in destination marketing speak: “California’s Little Denmark.” Solvang was founded in the early twentieth century by Danes with the vision of establishing a “Danish village, where the arts, crafts and customs of their homeland could be created anew.” Also, they wanted to build a Danish folk school. At least this is what the napkins in The Red Viking Restaurant say.

There I had Danish frikadeller, potato salad and red cabbage. Eating frikadeller, meat balls, was, in fact, my main motivation to drive up the 45 minutes from Santa Barbara. It was time well spent, as you can also get great pastries in Solvang.  (There is a reason these things are called Danish!)

Solvang is a nice little tourist destination and some corners of the village truly look like a Danish town, whereas others more resemble a theme park with a Little Mermaid statue, gift shops and an odd amount of windmills. The food though is excellent.

Could have fooled me. Very Danish looking street in Solvang, California.

You can buy a lot of pastries in Solvang. There are Danish bakeries everywhere.

Many of the villages surrounding Solvang look like American western towns, so it is pretty funny seeing these European style houses.

Bust of Hans Christian Andersen in Solvang, California.

Read all about “The Danish Capital of America!”

That’s it, folks, Solvang, a Danish Village!

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