Celebrating Retirement Tour October 2019 - Day 21 Wed 23 Oct - More filming & Santa B Courthouse

[Fireworks]

Surprisingly I woke up bright and breezy with no hangover 👍 No idea how that happened 🤣

Today's plan was shopping and to visit Santa Barbara Courthouse, but first it had to be Sambo's breakfast again to set us up for the day.

We waddled down State Street with extremely full bellies, buying a few gifts along the way for people at home. It was extremely hot today, but luckily State Street has lots of trees so one side of the street always seems to be shady. We love shopping in Santa Barbara, it has a great selection of small individual shops as well as some of the big names, and is really pretty.

We found the Courthouse and went inside. It is a working Courthouse but open free of charge to the public. It is a stunning building, and one of the formal rooms has amazing murals depicting the history of Santa Barbara all around the walls. It is also free to visit the top of the clock towe which has spectacular 360° views of the whole of Santa Barbara.

Walked back down State Street and called into one of the bars for a nice cool drink and spent some time people watching.

As this was our last full day both of our time in Santa Barbara and of the holiday we knew there was only one thing we wanted to do and that was to visit our favourite wine bar but go a little bit later today to watch the sunset, so first we went back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and chill in the room, finishing off the banana bread.

We got to the wine bar, and after chatting to the two brothers who run it it turns out that their father originally came from the next town to where we live at home! What a small world 🌍 We were also joking with them about the filming yesterday, and saying how peaceful it was tonight when they said "Actually, the California Tourist Board are shooting a promotional video tonight, they will be here any second"!

Sure enough, more camera crews turned up to film the sunset, so not only could we appear on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, we might be on a TV ad too 😳 It was unbelievable timing, and really interesting to be so closely involved in both lots of filming. 🎥📺 We did learn our lesson though and only had one bottle of wine this evening.

Dinner at Mexican, Santo Mezcal, part of Hotel Indigo. Chicken tacos and shrimp tacos, $55 including tip. Once again fabulous food.

Link to previous days - https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho... php?t=1150994

[stanleycamel]

Thanks for the photos of Santa Barbara - I have family who live just up the hill from the Mission and it is a lovely place. Did you know that it isn't allowed to build anything in SB higher than the Courthouse - means you get those lovely views in your piccies.