Soul-Vang, A Solvang Blog (Patreon)

Before this year, I had never heard of Solvang. How, I don’t know, but I am glad we heard about this adorable town and went to visit.

Day 1 - Sunday

We started off spending our first night about 20 minutes from Solvang, in Los Alamos, at The Vick bed and breakfast.

This was actually my first time staying in a true B&B, and I loved it! It was also my first time staying in a hotel that was themed to this degree. I’ve stayed at The Madonna Inn (which funnily enough, we realized is only about 45 minutes further north from Solvang) and shot in a couple rooms there, but they’re not themed to the degree of The Vick. Lemme tell ya, this B&B does not disappoint! We chose the Roman room and as you can see, not a detail was missed!

Including Nero laughing as Rome burned in this mural:

Also…. Notice the horror of this mural behind the otherwise peaceful bathtub area!

Wtf. 😂

After settling in, we went for dinner next door at The Maker’s Son, and had an awesome meal. Service was so-so, but the food was unique and delish. Really enjoyed the grilled watermelon salad and smoked s’mores mousse!

After dinner, we HAD to use the bath! For a photoset first:

Then for funsies!

Naturally, this led to testing out the bed. 😏 Both the tub and bed were big wins!

Los Alamos also had an antique mall and other cute shops, but we left too early to check them out. Let’s be real… if I had gone into them we’d have spent a whole extra day there!

We were also told to check out Bob’s Well Bread, but since we had a yummy breakfast via our bed & breakfast

… we decided we didn’t need more food.

Day 2 - Monday

After breakfast, it was off to Solvang!

As soon as you pull into the main street in town, the charm of Danish architecture gives you the feeling of being a kid again. There was a distinct feeling of excitement to explore something new and lesser known. The town looks like a single block, maybe two, but there are more blocks out of sight.

First stop: Hotel - Wine Valley Inn and Cottages

And OH MY GAWSH was it ever adorable!

Daytime:

Nighttime:

And that reminds me of this! 🤣

https://youtu.be/Ln2Xq8fCNI8

Though we were a few hours early, the hotel let us check in so we didn’t have to worry about our bags sitting in the truck. Big win! While it was adorable outside, I took approximately zero photos of the interior because it was as basic as they come. That being said, it was VERY clean and comfy and I would 100% stay again. We also had a cute patio since we were on the ground floor.

As we stepped out to explore, we see this:

Way to start it off!

Immediately we notice all the bakeries. I can’t even tell you how many we passed! Ice cream shops were right up there as well.

We went into a legit antique store and were blown away by how lovely the people who worked there were and how much time they took to explain how their phonograph cylinders work and demonstrate them. We walked through a museum/bookstore, some vintage shops that were way too curated for my liking (they felt more like high end stores with lots of spacing and expensive things that weren’t as quirky as I usually like), a clock store, one of the most incredible tea & spice stores that I could have easily spent way too much in, and lots of other cute places. Oh and bakeries. Did I mention the many bakeries?

They’re all fun to look at, but I will say it got quite repetitive and if I’m being fully honest, as someone who tries to be conscious of consumerism, it was a bit much for me with so many shops having similar things. I think this would have been broken up a bit more had we gone Wed-Sun since a lot of stores that weren’t just tourist traps were closed Mon-Tues. That being said, we did buy Marlene (our creepy doll “daughter” who lives on our couch) a very cute Danish dress.

My favorite store of the day was the Solvang Spice Merchant. I. FELL. IN. LOVE. 😍

The fact that they had clear sections of sugar-free and salt-free blends was a huge plus because I remember the difficulty of having to eliminate both for a while when JD was sick.

After this, we walked around a bit more then went back to the room around mid-afternoon and watched some Law and Order (a JD classic when there’s no streaming! Lol).

We decided to order food so we could continue the L & W binge, and that ended up being a great and a hilarious choice. JD’s veggie dog was dryyyy AF!

Look at that! Dry as a bone! Not even a drip of grease on the bread! 💧

But my meal was delish with plenty of grease! 😅 We also dove into the 5 desserts we bought from the bakery and holy heck were they yummy!

I think we just chilled, maybe napped? (can’t remember) then went out for dinner across the street for dinner. It was lovely having access to a variety of restaurants within walking distance. However, we waited a bit too late for many of them to be an option since they close early. It was around 7:30 pm and several places we wanted to try were closed already. After dinner, we crashed!

Day 3 - Tuesday

I woke up before JD and took myself on a gorgeous walk and took these photos:

I got ready once back and we went to breakfast at Paula’s Pancake House to try their Danish pancakes. This place had been packed the day before so we went early, around 8, which ended up being perfect because we got in right away and immediately after we sat, there was a line of 15 people waiting and that grew rapidly to 30+ within minutes. The Danish pancakes did not disappoint! My gosh…. sooo good! The sausage I got was also very yummy, as was their syrup that I pre-judged too harshly due to its runny-ness.

We then packed up and drove to Santa Barbara to explore a bit and that was when the trouble began. JD had THE WORST sugar crash I’ve ever witnessed. Could it have been the fact that he ordered Danish pancakes AND regular pancakes first thing in the morning and didn’t have any eggs or other nourishing food first?! Could it have been exacerbated by the insane amount of sugar we had the evening prior? Yes and yes. We barely made it through a couple shops before he looked like he was dying. Here are the ones we made it to that i really enjoyed:

Antique Alley:

Pure Luna Apothecary:

So we drove back to LA and spent the rest of the afternoon watching Netflix, which actually felt really nice. Santa Barbara was bigger than we expected and for a Tuesday midday, there was rather heavy traffic. Wasn’t the vibe we wanted. He also got back to feeling okay by eating some protein and fat, which I recommended. All those years of obsessing over food for fitness training back in the day paid off! 😅

All in all, what an incredible trip! For anyone looking to get away for a quick trip, this area is wonderful for couples and for families. Shoot, would be fun solo too! ❤️