California Adventure: Santa Barbara Day One

Thursday 18 March 2010


You know those places you visit and you didn't expect to fall in love with and you totally totally DO fall head-over-heels in love? Santa Barbara was like that for our family.

As we drove into this magnificent, spiritual coastal town after our hairy Big Sur drive, it was like the angels descended from the mountains with us. As we pulled into the outskirts of town, the clouds parted and clustered around the horizon like a halo, letting the sun through, all warm and golden, silent and surreal. Colours were strewn everywhere like someone was holding up a giant crystal and we were caught in the rainbow.

The light was fading fast and we were desperate to experience our first glimpse of this awesome beach before the sun slipped down to bed.



Yes, we ran.

Talk about the most flat, calm, divine, beautiful, surreal place, with light like Paris (all pink and lucid) and incredible dispersing storm clouds and a gentle coating of post-storm haze coating the palm-tree hillsides, the flanks of white hacienda houses, popping through like stars.




As we walked towards the pier, ever direction was magnificent. The ocean, the town, the hills, the beachscape - it was just all around us.



As the light dimmed, we were desperate to hold onto it so we could still see. The night quickly sank in, until everything became silhouette, including the surfers on a late, lazy swell.



After a beautiful walk along the pier, it was back to our room...

...for a pool-centered, palm-treed vista of the ocean, at the Harbor View Inn. Sigh. And what a fabulous place to stay - truly scumptious and one of the best beds I've ever slept in next to the Shanghai JW Marriott.

This post is making me weep. If you get a chance to go to Santa Barbara, please go.

California Adventure: The Streets of San Francisco - Day One
California Adventure: The Streets of San Francisco - Day Two
California Adventure: The Streets of San Francisco - Day Three
California Adventure: The Streets of San Francisco - Day Four
California Adventure: Carmel-on-Sea
California Adventure: The Big Sur
California Adventure: Santa Barbara Day Two
California Adventure: Santa Monica & Hollywood Hills

2 comments:

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

Wow, your images capture exactly what you describe, it is a tad Parisian. Wow, gorgeous!! Was your last post about your wonderful mother-in-law?? Did she pass away on St Patrick's Day, ironic for an Irish person. I lost my mother-in-law on Easter Sunday as did my sister (lose hers) & my sister-in-law, also lost her mother-in-law on Easter Sunday, ALL 3 women to breast cancer. Love & hugs, Posie

Tania McCartney said...

Hi Posie P, It was my father in law. He passed away 7 years ago but not on St Paddy's Day - that was his birthday. We miss him so terribly.

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