Skip to main content

California: Spanish and Danish

Those two words really ought to rhyme, shouldn't they?  You might not expect to find them in such close proximity, and in California, of all places.  But read on, and all will be explained.

The Spanish is pretty obvious.  As you may be aware, the Spanish were the earliest European settlers in these regions, and as in Texas, they sought to convert the natives and colonise the area by building missions.  You can tell they had the pick of the land, because the Mission in Santa Barbara is in the most beautiful spot, just in the foothills of the mountains.  We spent a while relaxing and letting Toby run around in the park, which incorporated a rose garden and some venerable trees.


Looking at art from a recent festival - not your average chalk drawing!
View from the Mission
Toby loves having sun cream put on his face!
 

The self-guided tour took us through the peaceful inner courtyard of the Mission.  Up some stone steps, we wandered into the graveyard, where thousands of Chumash Indians were buried under a shady mission fig tree.  The church was simply but colourfully decorated, and the tour finished with a small museum detailing some of the history.  I was absorbed by some newspaper articles from the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake.  One hotel had lost a wall, leaving its rooms as open-fronted boxes, "in some of which the occupants could be seen gathering their scattered belongings preparatory to leaving".  Well yes, if the front of my hotel fell off I think I'd leave, too!

Courtyard of the Mission
Inside the church
Stations of the Cross
And on to the other main example of Spanish architecture, the Santa Barbara courthouse.  Everything we read said, "We know you wouldn't usually go see a courthouse on vacation, but trust us, this is worth seeing."  Everything we read was right.  There's a bell tower which you can climb for a view of the city, and a room you can peer in and see the clock mechanism with everything whirring round, and there are murals, and arches, and decorative tiles, and little nooks and crannies, and... hey, all those hard surfaces amplify Toby's screaming really well, so let's get out of here right now...

The clock room
The courthouse from the bell tower
Painted ceiling




Floor detail

I want steps like this!





Let's go to Denmark!  Or the closest local equivalent, a town called Solvang.  This was founded in the early 20th century by a group of Danish-Americans, who later decided it would be nice if the town looked Danish as well.  The result is really quite pretty, if a little heavy on the windmill motif.  It even has a little Little Mermaid!



Hans Christian Andersen features quite prominently too; we viewed his statue and walked to a park bearing his name, where Toby enjoyed a musical wall.




We also stopped at one of the many bakeries for coffee and a Danish pastry (what else?).  Toby was treated to an owl-eye cookie - round with a blob of jam in the middle - and demonstrated how to use the cutlery.

A spoon?  Really?
On the way home we ate lunch at the Cold Spring Tavern.  Nestled in a beautiful spot in a tree-lined valley next to a stream, this was on the old coaching route from Santa Barbara.  The valley has now been bridged, so the main road arches far overhead, and the inn is left in peace.  It serves much better food than you might infer from its exterior, although with Toby not feeling too good, I had to try and enjoy my quiche with him wedged in my lap.


The steel arch bridge carrying the main highway

And finally, a few miscellaneous photos to round off this portion of the trip.  Next time, we're heading to Long Beach!

Enormous Moreton Bay fig tree in Santa Barbara.  This became a bit of a joke, we meant to go and see it so many times, and only made it right at the end of our visit.
Our rental apartment came with resident cat.
Feeding the ducks at a local park.
Lots of houses had orange trees growing in their gardens.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where am I going now? The Portway

I should probably explain why I am pottering around Nottingham and its western suburbs, rather than roaming the Derbyshire countryside. It's not just the abundance of paved paths, although that certainly helps - I recently went on a country walk across a cow field and found myself tiptoeing gingerly across boggy mud cratered with six-inch deep hoof holes. Then I was confronted by a sign which said: Private Property, Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. I congratulated myself on being on a public right of way, then, a few steps on, consulted the map and realised I wasn't. The path was across a completely different field. nice scenery, though I digress. Apart from the absence of cows and angry landowners, the reason I am walking around Nottingham is that it's the start of the Portway. There is a blog called The Old Roads of Derbyshire , written by a man named Stephen Bailey, who has also published a book of the same name. I can't remember now whether I came across the book fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Portway: Lenton to the Bramcote Hills

It was cold. My fingers were cold, and my phone was cold too. The OS map was totally failing to find my location, and the more I prodded it the less feeling I had in my fingers, so I gave up, shoved both my phone and my chilly hands into my pockets, and set off. After all, I knew where I was. This was Wollaton Park. And the path was very obvious. Just follow the avenue of trees... ...past the deer... ...and out through the fancy gates. Crossing a busy road brought me into a neat little housing estate with unusual round street signs. This was built when Wollaton Park was sold to Nottingham City Council in 1925. The old gatehouse, Lenton Lodge, is now estranged from the rest of the park, and stands by itself next to Derby Road. The bridge used to go over the Nottingham Canal, which has now been turned back into the River Leen. The unfortunate river got shoved out of the way whenever someone came up with a new building project. This is not its original course. My hands were warming up sli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Advent 2025: Mercy

I'm going to read the whole Bible. The question came up in my homegroup recently (have you ever...?) and even though large parts of the Bible are embedded in my brain, and even though I'm pretty sure I have read all of it at some point, I have never set out to read the whole thing. My friend Dave read through the Bible several times. He was one of the most Christian men I know, in all the best ways, and he died recently. So. This is for Dave, too. Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I was going to start on December 1st, and I was going to do the obvious thing and start with Genesis, alongside the Psalms. Then I saw something that mentioned reading Luke in Advent (24 chapters: 24 days) and then I had some spare time today and thought why not? so here I am, a day ahead of myself already. Luke 1 is hardly a voyage into the unknown. In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent by God,  the Magnificat and the Benedictus ... all woven tightly into the liturgies of the church. But ...
Post a Comment
Read more