Our last week here in Santa Barbara kicked off with a bang. For the past 94 years, the town has celebrated its Spanish heritage and history with the Old Spanish Days Fiesta. One of the main events of the five-day festival is the Desfile Histórico (historical parade) which features over 600 horses. The parade started just around the corner from our apartment, so we went to check it out.
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| Horse riders in traditional costumes |
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| Mariachis |
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| Flamenco dancers |
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| Santa Barbara on a horse-drawn float |
We went to the Mercado de la Guerra a couple of times to enjoy some food (mmmm....churros!) and live music.
We also learned about the tradition of cascarónes. These are hollowed out eggs that are colorfully decorated and filled with confetti. Some are just dyed a single color, but many of them are miniature works of art.
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| Photo courtesy of Santa Barbara Independent |
The fun thing to do is to go around breaking the shells (cascarón is the Spanish word for shell) over unsuspecting people's heads. We were sitting next to a family at one of the Fiesta events and their cute little boy about two years old was very excited to break one over my head, shouting "Viva La Fiesta!". Very fun! As you can imagine, the city spends several days sweeping up confetti after the festival...
We also took some time over the weekend to tour the gorgeous Santa Barbara Courthouse building, which is modeled after a Spanish-style castillo and has a beautiful Mural Room. Weddings are often held here.
The clock tower of the Courthouse offers 360-degree views of the entire city and surrounding mountains.
We managed to keep quite busy this week! We also went to Stearns Wharf...
...visited the Sea Center...
...watched the locals lounge on the beach …
... and saw the largest ficus tree in the US, a Moreton Bay Fig tree. This is just a block from our apartment and was planted in the late 1870's.
It's been a lovely (and relatively cool) month here in Santa Barbara. We will certainly miss it once we are back in the summer heat of Arizona!
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