Day 5 | Santa Barbara

I woke up early again but managed to rest and sleep on and off until around 7am.  There is a skylight in the bathroom and a window from the bathtub to the bed, so there's no way to avoid the light.  Other than that, the Spanish Garden Inn was fantabulous!

We got dressed and went downstairs to eat breakfast.  The garden with the fountain is really nice.  And I love the fragrant flowers there.

The breakfast spread.

They had different biscuits, scones, fruits, hard boiled eggs, coffee, etc.  It was pretty good.  

Then we came back to the room and decided to go get a latte at Handlebar Coffee.  We went there on our trip to Santa Barbara in 2012.  The owners, Kim and Aaron, used to be professional cyclists.  Kim even won the 2009 Route de France Féminine, the women’s version of the Tour de France.  It was only a couple of blocks walk from our hotel.  

We shared a large latte and it was so smooth and delicious!  

Then we walked a few blocks to Andersen’s to get some Swedish pastry.  We got two pastries with marzipan.  Todd ate one of them for breakfast #2.  He loved the one with marzipan + custard. 

Going to Andersen’s is a Santa Barbara tradition for us.  This is our 6th trip there.

After breakfast, I took a shower in the nice big tiled shower.  The Molton Brown shampoo, conditioner, and soap is nice.  I did my hair and makeup.  Then it was time for lunch.  We drove over to the harbor.  We parked at the harbor and walked over to Brophy Brothers for lunch.  

We ate upstairs on the balcony this time.  

I had the ahi tuna poke salad, while Todd got the fish& chips.  Both were yummy.  

The views were pretty good, but would have been better if everything wasn't so cloudy and overcast.

After lunch we drove back to the hotel.  After resting a little bit, we walked over to State Street and visited The Book Den.  It was a strange run down messy bookstore without very good lighting.  But it definitely had character.  Todd found some sci-fi books that he read as a teenager, which was nostalgic and fun.  

We walked by the SB court house.

And the Lobero Theater.

We tried to find some place to get Rori's Artisanal Creamery ice cream but struck out.  I first found out about Rori’s ice cream on an episode of the Barefoot Contessa, where Ina and Rori made salted caramel ice cream.  (We’ve made that ice cream at home and it’s so good!)  Then we decided to go to the Santa Barbara Public Market (new!  It wasn’t there in 2012 when we went.) and low and behold Rori's Creamery is one of the stores in there!  

We were so excited, lol.  What a discovery!  I had honey lavender ice cream and it was strange but wonderful.  I’m not sure why I looked so deranged though.

Honey lavender ice cream.  I’ve never had anything like it and it was SO good! 

Todd got the lemon custard and loved it.  A Todd Shot.

Rori’s has very unique and awesome flavors.

We walked around the public market and found a lot of good food that we would eat, so we decided to come back here for lunch before leaving SB tomorrow.  Although, Todd does not approve of the cheese store.  He hates cheese!

Then we walked on State Street and went shopping at Old Navy. I got a top for work,  while Todd found lots of shorts on sale.  He got three pairs of shorts.  We went to Paseo Nuevo and looked around.  We window shopped.  Then around 4pm we went back to the hotel to rest.  I took a nap.  Todd played on the iPad and watched some TV.  Then we headed out for our 6pm dinner reservation at Bouchon.  We walked over and it took forever, so were slightly late to dinner.

It was a really nice California French restaurant.  I got the French Four Onion Soup with Gruyere cheese.  It was wonderful.  I’m not a cheese-hater like Todd.

Todd got the Chargrilled Rack of Lamb.

I got the Mustard Glazed Local White Sea Bass with rock shrimp.  

Both were delicious.  We finished off with a shared chocolate molten lava chocolate cake with McConnell's vanilla ice cream.  

 

Then we walked back to the hotel.  The courthouse looked so cool in the dusk.

On the way back we stopped inside Granada Bookstore and it was really nice.  Much better organized than The Book Den, and better lighting.  We browsed books and it was fun.  Then we went back to the hotel.  The Spanish Garden Inn has a good selection of DVDs for free rental from the front desk.  We took out “Julia & Julia” but did not end up watching it, because we were playing on our iPads.  It was a great day in Santa Barbara, our favorite getaway.