Santa Barbara: Relaxing and Culturally Stimulating

As the holiday draws near its unfortunate conclusion, it seemed only right that we put our feet up in luxury for a few days. After all, it’s been hard work all of this Pacific adventuring! I cannot think of a better place to rest the weary legs and revitalise the overloaded mind with great food, culture and architecture than; Santa Barbara.

Hotels

Pool side at Hotel Oceana

 

We stayed in Hotel Oceana which is an unusual beachside place formed from the conversion of 4 old motels into a boutique style colourful hotel with a decent location. I say beachside, it’s actually across the road but there are no walk-onto-the-beach hotels in SB as far as I can see so no complaints there. The pool was lovely and we had a nice large superior room.

 

On the roof at sundown

 

 

Night Life

SB seems to be a party town for the resident UCSB students and lively Californians who jet here for the weekend party scene. It’s as you may expect an upscale strip along State St offering excellent restaurants of every sort and a selection of bars and nightclubs for later.

Architecture

Rooftops in Santa Barbara looking over to Hills

The Spanish Colonial architecture in SB is impressive. To say it had been lovingly preserved would be incorrect since much of it was decimated by the 1920s major earthquake. Lovingly restored would therefore more aptly describe it.

A fine place to watch a movie is The Arlington Theatre, host to much of the Santa Barbara Film Festival. It’s the most spectacular cinema I’ve ever seen, with a huge seating area and screen surrounded by artificial (but pretty realistic) Mock Spanish Villas and a starry-sky roof to give the feeling of sitting in an open air courtyard. The effect is stunning.

We watched Burn After Reading, a new Cohen Brothers release providing an almost Shakespearian farcical diversion from their usual stuff.

Finally, I spent an afternoon looking around the Law Courts and The Museum of Art which was showing a Hollywood Photography exhibition. It’s a small but good art museum.

Food

Opal Restaurant  - Great Quality innovative modern Italian food with seafood accents. Good cocktails.

 

Sunset at the Marina

Tags: arcitecture, art, california, culture, pacific, relaxation, santa barbara, spanish colonial, USA