Solvang - or - Denmark, CA [7/14]

Solvang also known as the "Danish Capital of America" was a no miss stop on our trip. I've been to Solvang before and it really is, well, quaint. It doesn't look much like modern Denmark, but it certainly does look like the Denmark that goes with a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale - so good enough. Surprisingly to me, there were also quite a few Danes in town this time. Solvang has an interesting tourist demographic, its visitors can be divided into to roughly 3 categories:
1. Senior Citizens or air-conditioned bus trips
2. Danes who've seen Solvang on TV at home and want to check it out (one of those great tourism mysteries: why go around the world to see something that looks like home?)
3. People who are only there for the Wine (country)
Seems that after the movie Sideways the latter category is slowly taking over, which is a bad thing for people like me coming for the abundant Danish treats , but probably a good thing for the towns general economic development.

Speaking of treats, we were proud to say that we did make it to Mortensen's Danish Bakery. This was a key destination on our trip, as it is run by relatives of one of my Mom's friends. They weren't there to meet us in person, but their Rom-kugler get two thumbs up. Another important Solvang treat destination is Ingeborg's where they take pride in feature almost any possible kind of Danish licorice candy - a feast for the licorice connoisseur, and probably horrifying to anyone else (i should note that they also sell Danish chocolates, which are probably more agreeable to most).

While in Solvang we had the great luck to stay in the "Denmark Cabin" featured here - lucky us - imagine if they had given us the Sweden cabin? (silly Danish joke - sorry ;)

California Missions / El Camino Real [7/12-15]

Given our success with the Oregon Lighthouses we set out to see as many California Missions as possible on our way down the coast. There's 21 California Missions that a situated along and linked together by the historic "Camino Real" - quoting this Camino Real Website & borrowing their overview map:

"The history of the El Camino Real and its bells, is quite interesting. At the same time that the American colonies were rebelling against England, a handful of Spaniards and Mexicans established outposts up the California coast. The first was established in 1769 at San Diego, when they established a fortress and a Franciscan mission. From that point, a series of small self-reliant religious missions were established. Each was a day's travel apart and linked by El Camino Real, Overall, El Camino Real ("The King's Highway") linked 21 missions, pueblos and four presidios from San Diego to Sonoma."

21 turned out to be quite a bit to visit, especially since the Camino Real follows the current 101 highway more closely so than the 1/PCH that was our chosen travel route. Another challenge not to be underestimated, were the mission visits themselves. The Missions are not state parks, but belong to and are run by the Catholic church, which is very noticeable in their museums and in particular in their gift shops, this can be a bit of a trial for the average agnostic Dane...

Here are the 6 we did make it to:

San Juan Bautista - couldn't miss this one for the Hitchcock bonus: this is were the shot the mission scenes for vertigo (although they did tweak it a bit, adding a tower that doesn't actually exist). This one also comes with a particularly lovely Mexican style little village alongside it, which is where we found the Heavenly Espresso shop, which' sign is pictured above...

San Carlos Borromeo de Carmel this one is situated on the outskirts of Carmel and was our favorite in terms of outside beauty -- Interestingly we found that all of the missions we visited were known for being "the most beautiful of all California mission" ... but this one really was amazingly pretty, with a gorgeous amount of colorful flowers surrounding it.

San Luis Obispo de Tolosa - can't say much about this one except for liking the painted interior of the church and maybe also worth mentioning, this was the first one to feature substantial information about the Chumash people who lived in the area before the mission was erected.

Santa Ines - situated at the edge of town in Solvang and next to one of the Danish bakeries, this one came with a delicious smell of Danish pastry while visiting the cemetery, as well as a very well narrated tour of the grounds, pointing out sites of former buildings etc.


Santa Barbara - the beautiful Santa Barbara. One thing we noticed was that as we traveled further south the missions were getting bigger and more costly to visit... Santa Barbara really couldn't keep up with the other missions, although it again was claimed to be the 'most beautiful of California missions'.

San Juan Capistrano - "the Jewel of the Missions" and right down the road from my sisters house in the OC. The church is heavily damaged by the 1812 earthquake as can be seen in this picture, but otherwise the largest missions we stopped at.

Hearst Castle [7/13 - CA]

After some debating I've decided to give Mr. Hearst and his castle their own blog entry. The last time I came by this way (pretty much exactly 10 years ago - gulp!) we didn't bother to stop as our "young & hip" guidebook told us, that it was overpriced and not worth it -> wrong and what a pity - this is so much fun.
Visiting Hearst Castleis indeed pricy, we ended up paying a full $24 for the 'intro tour' [recommended for 'first time visitors' - they have a total of 5 different tours to choose from, because the place is so big] - however considering that the tour is 2.5 hours and considering which large 'operation' they have in place to make visits possible, it seems entirely justified.

The outside of the castle (which is really not one, but several buildings) is interesting seen with European eyes, it's a bit of an eclectic southern European style mish-mash, there's a bit of Gaudi, combined with some ancient Romans, combined with a bit of Notre Dame...[-- without wanting to criticize Julia Morgan, the castle's architect, who did an extremely fine job given the demands of her customer] The inside is an equally eclectic, but very impressive amassment of antiques and artworks from all other the world. What blew me away was the sheer number of objects that was brought to this remote location and hauled up this hillside at a time before the PCH - Pacific Coast Highway - was in service.

All in all an amazing collection of Art that Hearst had the luck to be able to acquire right after WW1, when most of Europe was broke and willing to sell out to fund rebuilding the continent - how else do you end up with the 600 years old hand carved oak interior of a French church? Or the ceiling of/from a palace on the Iberian peninsula? Oh and all the flags from the Sienna Palio - as seen in the shot of the dining room on the left. BTW. Notice the Ketchup bottles on the table? Apparently Hearst knew that he was one of the 3 richest people in America and hence figured, that since none of his guests had more money than he did, no need to impress anyone...

As you can tell I simply loved this visit, and much credit for that probably goes to our guide Steve (they wont let you walk around on your own - too risky in terms of stealing or breaking stuff) - he must have known pretty much any and all anecdotes or fun stories about Hearst and the castle which made this excursion very memorable. My very favorite 'room', was the one pictured here: it's the indoor swimming pool - which is entirely covered in 1/2'' x 1/2'' Italian class mosaic tile - what can I say besides I want one!

Monterey & Big Sur [7/12-13 - CA]

From Palo Alto we were anxious to hit the coast again. The visit to silicon Valley had been worth it - Dad now knows where silicon Valley is... We hit the road towards Santa Cruz enjoying along the way the soft yellow hills, that so perfectly match what a Dane would call "Cowboy Landscape" - read: this is what the landscape looks like in European wild west novels and movies...

Our first stop on the way is the Mission San Juan Bautista, but since I am doing a separate entry on Missions, you'll have to wait for details on that one. We continue on for another 30 minutes or so of driving through strawberry fields - quite literally. This was the is smelling part of the trip, the air is full of sweet, ripe and happy strawberry smells - we however do not envy their picking crews who are hard at work under the California sun.

Marine layer comes back to meet us and we know we most be very close to Monterey and indeed so we are. Since we've decided to steer clear of too crazy crowds after our San Fran visit we cruise right by the city and head straight for the 17-Mile Drive that takes you around the tip of the Monterey Peninsula. At exactly 50 cents per mile ($8.50 is the fee to enter the drive) - it's a lot less crowded than the public areas but still very well visited.

It is a pretty drive - but what impressed us most were not the views (they are no different then in many other places along the coast) but the wildlife that seemed to be thriving with the many visitors (or to some extend almost enjoying the attention). My favorites were the seals shown in this picture that were lined up for a tanning session - what you can't see in the pictures is, that there were more seals waiting in the water to hit the beach as soon as someone would take off or go for a dip. I'd dare say that this most be the Seal version of Orange County...

Anyway, we were finally ready to visit what Dad considered the most important part of the 17-Mile Drive - the Pebble Beach golf course. We where wondering whether they would let visitors in, but of course they do... Only to serve them outrageously expensive drinks on their nice little deck overlooking the 18th hole. (Yes this is the deck you see in the background on TV, when they go for the green on 18). Unfortunately the golfing we got to watch wasn't really all that impressive - or let's put it this way, I wouldn't be intimidated to play this course [but then again, I did beat Dad when we played Newcastle in Bellevue, WA -- sorry Dad - had to rub it in :)]

On we went, passing through the pretty little town of Carmel with all of its pretty little shops (note to reader: this is were Clint Eastwood once ruled as mayor), passing by the Carmel Mission (more later) and then finally hitting the road into the real Big Sur. We knew it was going to be 'lonely' and boy was it ever. Miles and miles of beautiful, rugged coastline and curvy road stretched before us.

We had decided that we wanted to stay the night in 'some crazy little place' and there are a few of these in the Big Sur, but the keyword really is 'few'. It took us quite a while and quite a few miles, before we came upon a place that had room for us - the magnificent 'town' of Gorda Springs. Gorda Springs is so small, that it doesn't even show up on most maps and still it is truly majestic in its own little way.

The 'town' consists of a general store, that is also a gas station, that is also a restaurant, that also has little hill side cabins for rent. I was thrilled, the entire trip I had been waiting for us to stay in a place with a view of the pacific and our little Cabin in Gorda was as close as you can come to perfecting that dream. Gorda's other claim to fame is its Whale Watching. Given that the coast is so steep at this spot, the Ocean right in front of it is very deep, which makes Whales come there to frolic - in December to March, so no whales for us, but definitely a place worth coming back to for that purpose.

There's not much else going on in Gorda, this was one of the places, where my "Wireless Internet?", question was answered with "we don't even get TV or cell phone reception out here" - so no connectivity for us this day. Instead the Cabin hostess was kind enough to give us a Duralog for our outdoor fireplace, so we spent the evening watching the ocean and the stars, catching a few passing satellites...

Cruisin' [7/11 - CA]

Time to leave Napa and head down to San Francisco. Perfect weather for top down driving and Dad has by now taken quite a liking to it. We approach the city and the Golden Gate bridge from the North sneaking peak-a-boo views of it along the way and we are very excited about it being such a clear and gorgeous day.


We don't have reservations for visiting Alcatraz (bummer!) but go down to Pier 39 & Fishermen's Wharf anyway. Turns out to be the most crowded place we've been to so far, tourists are just everywhere and we are amazed at what 'stuff' people are willing to buy and pay for.


We manage to have a good time regardless, enjoying the vintage ships in the San Francisco Maritime Park and the amazing views of Golden Gate & Alcatraz.


The day ends in Palo Alto where we stay in the cozy Cowper Inn - a 1893 Mansion - and spend time hanging out with my friend Marc Tobias. He tells us about Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to the Yahoo campus that day and takes us to my favorite American diner (forgot its name...) where we enjoy huge and spicy hamburgers and delicious sundaes.

Wein, Weib & Gesang! [7/10 - Napa Valley]

Where to start? Our first realization in Napa was that there are way too many wineries and way too little time - have a look at this wonderful map provided by the Napa Vintners and you'll get the idea: Map of Napa Valley - luckily we are used to tough challenges and so Julie crafted a battle plan that would take us to 5 of these fine establishments before boarding the Wine Train for a gourmet dinner @ 6.30 PM.

Here are the 5 wineries we made it to:
Sterling
Beringer
Rutherford Hill
Stag's Leap
Hess Collection

and here are the results from the JTWM jury:

Sterling: Gorgeous setting, the only winery featuring a ski resort style gondola taking visitors from the parking lot to their tour and tasting rooms. Their tour is great, very well laid out in beautiful and spacious modern, white, Mediterranean style buildings. Their wine, well, unfortunately, I can't say anything good about their wine really. Of the 4 kinds they served on the tour (2 whites & 2 reds) none were memorable or even decent - this winery was the tour highlight in terms of views and the low light in terms of wine. Our advice to Sterling: try spending more money on the wine and less on the presentation (read the on site Gondola).


Beringer: Good mainstream kind-a large winery. Not really all that impressive or outstanding in any way - decent wines and decent setting - but with a bit of a 'fast food' flavor to the experience given the many people they serve. If I remember correctly Julie quite enjoyed their Chardonnay - a wine that I mostly fail to enjoy, so can't comment on whether that was a good call or not :).


Rutherford Hill: The one with the Cave - something we were quite excited about. These guys dug their own large hole (ok: Cave) in the cliff wall to allow their wines to mature in perfect temperature and humidity. The latter being important, as it means the barrels will have to be topped off less often, hence letting less oxygen into the maturing wine, which is considered a good thing (hey - I did learn something!) Unfortunately this superior technique wasn't really noticeable in the wines we tried on site. They also get minus points for a having a tour that is a little on the long side (without tasting stops!), a bland tour guide and finally for allowing large numbers of non-wine drinkers on the tour (what's the point?!)


Stag's Leap: My personal tasting favorite. This winery is small and there is no fuss, aka intricate (read lengthy) tours and gift shops - it's just a short hope from the parking lot to the tasting room where you can get right at it. There are no non-wine drinking tourists at this place. We loved their red wines, which are very rich and full bodied and even their Chardonnay is decent (read non fruity).

I'll add a side note here: While touring Napa the Sebring shone more than ever - it was the perfect vehicle for 'hopping' from vineyard to vineyard in style, while enjoying the warm California breezes and the magnificent views on all sides and I think we got quite a few jealous looks on this day.


Hess Collection: Last stop on our day tour and Julie's favorite (think she liked the Lion in their logo...) - the "Collection" refers to the extraordinary artwork they feature on site - truly amazing and a nice touch. Wines were above average and their Syrah in particular a feast, so we decided to bring a case back as Julie's birthday present. Which led to what seemed to be hours of confusion for their poor sales person, to much amusement to us, until he overcharged us by $100 -- we got that settled and came out with a beautiful, logo embellished, wooden case (which I of course didn't take any pictures of - so you get to enjoy a shot of my talisman frog visiting their scrumptious pond instead).


6 hours of wine tasting in the sun & 100 deg. F. can be a challenge, so we were truly excited about boarding the wine train the evening, ready to kick back and enjoy the views and food without having to do much ourselves. It was a pretty ride, although we were a bit disappointed that other guests did not go to the same lengths as we did in terms of finding a wearing proper evening attire - but that's a story I'll leave to Tim to tell some other time...

Lucky Cows, Lucky Russians, Lucky Us... [7/9 - CA]

Tough day: the first with a real goal/destination we had to reach before night fall: Napa Valley for the celebration of Julie's 28th birthday. We left Mendocino early and while the town was still covered in the early morning fog, aka Marine Layer that we have come to love, fear and be puzzled by every morning since hitting the California coast. For the reader who did not specialize in weather phenomenon in school, here is the short explanation of what Marine Layer is (quoted from a USA Today Q&A Site) "A marine layer is a cool, moist, sometimes fog-laden layer of air that is typically several hundred to as much as 2,000 feet thick. Chilly oceans, such as the Pacific off California, cool the air just above it, creating the marine layer. Warmer air above the layer acts like a lid, keeping it from mixing and dispersing. A steady west wind often piles the marine layer ashore, especially overnight, locking coastal communities in a cool, thick fog that lasts usually until midday when the sun is strong enough to break the inversion and mix out the layer."

While driving down the coast it didn't take long for us to realize that the cows living on California's north coast are some of the luckiest creatures in the world - just look at the view this one gets to enjoy (for free!) on a daily basis...








Seems like other people figured this out quicker than us - In Fort Ross the Russians settled in 1812 to hunt for Sea Otter furs which were the latest fashion hype back in St Petersburg - I'll dare to speculate that they simply liked it so much there, that they looked for an excuse to stay for as long as possible instead of making the ghastly trip back to Siberia. At least their books seem to support this theory, they never really did all that well financially. The Russians ended up eventually selling the Fort and all it's land to one Mr. Sutter in something like 1850, but not before having left their mark on the region. Only a few miles further south we arrive at the Russian River Valley - a beautiful river valley in Sonoma County renowned for its many wineries and the start of our journey in to wine country.

We follow the river to our final destination for the day Napa Valley, regretting for a bit having left the cool breezes of the coast to venture into the dry and dusty interior, at least until we reach our final destination and are greeted by Julie & Tim at the (in)famous Red Hen Cantina with some cooling compensation...

Redwoods & Victorian Bliss [7/8 - CA]

Our day started out with a bright and sunny tour through Ferndale a tiny Victorian town close to Eureka in northern California. Unbeknownst to us before getting there Ferndale turned out to have been a bit of a hub for Danish immigrants - lets just say that we became suspicious when the neighbor town turned out to be named Copenhagen and when the largest building in town was the "Danish Hall" (a meeting place for a variety of Danish lodges, churches etc...)

We decided to explore the Danish heritage a bit, including a visit to the pioneer cemetery that was very telling - a fun surprise and as an added bonus we met a second generation Dane at Nielsen's hardware store with whom we exchanged a few polite ancient Danish phrases. [Note to the reader: there seems to be a pattern here, exactly the same thing happened to us in St. Croix where we met and toured the island with legendary Danish immigrant Fritz Lawaetz (RIP)].

The reason Ferndale is on the tourist map is the multitude of Victorian houses - most substantially bigger than the puppet version I had my picture taken next to. The town was so cute that it caused Dad to break in to a shopping frenzy (people back home beware: strange gifts may be coming your way... ) culminating in Dad buying a summer cowboy hat. I think that means that there are no anti- Grand Canyon excuses allowed anymore...

Next up were the beautiful Redwoods, which had us cruising down the Avenue of the Giants . I love the Redwoods, there's something very cool and fascinating about trees that are over 5000 years old and so amazingly tall. Dad started contemplating having a tree shipped out to Denmark, so that he'd never run out of fire wood for his beloved fireplace again - for the rest of his life....

We left the Redwoods heading back to the coast and finally making it out to the real Pacific Coast Highway 1 and slowly making our way down to Mendocino which is where we chose to spend the night, before heading to Napa to meet my sister Julie on 07/10.

Mendocino does get honorable mention as one of my favorite spots on this trip - we stayed at Abigail's B & B incidentally owned and operated by a Danish guy from the lovely island of Laeso and just loved it - how could we not, the place features a gourmet breakfast and a daily pre dinner winetasting... Mendocino itself is just too cute - situated right on the coast and again featuring plenty of beautiful Victorian houses, in this case mixed with plenty of hippy trippy flower gardens.

Lighthouses [7/6 + 7/7 - OR]

Oregon has lighthouses - at least 12 of them. 9 form a quasi official tour along the coast. Being good sports with nothing better to do, we decided to conquer as many of them as possible. We made 7, deciding to exclude the one you can only see from afar and the one that was only ever used for 3 years (turned out to be in a sub-optimal spot...).

Most of them come with quite the stories of the 'hardships endured' by the lighthouse keepers, who would often live with their families close to the lighthouse, aka in the middle of nowhere.
Quite fascinating really and most of all, very well presented by extremely well meaning and knowledgeable senior citizen volunteers - charming really.


In other wonderful news was the weather: as you can see in these pics it was a bit of a mixed bag, so we were very pleased when a large billboard outside of Lincoln City informed us that we were now mid-way between the Northpole & Equator - this means entering the southern part of the northern hemisphere and promoted us to stop and fold down the top of our 'fancy' Sebring convertible - we didn't last too long though - the gray weather caught back up with us in Gold Beach. We decided to make a run for it and to try to make it to sunny California as soon as possible. But not before enjoying a final cup of Coffee in Denmark...


I just re-read this post and realized that I left out something quite significant: the mention of "The Crazy Norwegian's" Fish & Chips in Port Orford honestly the best F & C I've ever had and the establishment also gets bonus point for offering free Wifi to customers (note to the city folks: this is not a very common thing along the Oregon Coast).

Lewis & Clark [7/5 - WA & OR]

We left Seattle bright and early on July 5th - and decided to follow in the foot steps of Meriwhether Lewis & William Clark -- the great explorers of the Pacific North West -- meaning following the Columbia River from Longview, WA out to Astoria on the Oregon Coast.

We stopped by Fort Clatsop, L & C's fort on the Oregon Coast and hence the first US Army fort in the Pacific NW. They didn't last long out here - no wonder - apparently they stayed for 112 days and out of those it rained on 106, not all of the remaining 6 days were actually sunny, some merely gray.

Leaving this scene of early tourism misery behind, we continued on to Cannon Beach, in search of One Eyed Willy's treasure...