After spending the morning in Solvang, California (Little Denmark!), we arrived in our final destination for days 15 and 16 of our epic Pacific Coast Highway road trip: Santa Barbara.
I’m a pretty loyal Marriott Bonvoy member, but there weren’t any located in the heart SB, so we went with the Hotel Santa Barbara. The hotel was super cute, and we were able to find a cheap room last minute on Hotel Tonight.
The hotel is within walking distance of everything you could want to do within Santa Barbara, and we started our evening by walking over to the “Funk Zone” area to do some wine tasting.
Our first stop was Paradise Springs Winery, which had a great outdoor seating area shared with a few other restaurants nearby. We opted to do a flight to test out multiple wines, and it came in this great wine carrier, and allowed for us to go at our own pace and pour our own wines.
Our second stop was our favorite, Area 5.1 Winery, a play on Area 51 in New Mexico. All of the wines have hilarious names based on various extraterrestrial events, and they were also pretty good! We had a blast, and the gentleman running our tasting was so funny. We got a flight to start, had a glass of our favorite at the end, and then bought a few bottles to take home with us!
Our dinner reservations weren’t for a bit, so we squeezed in one last tasting at Kunin Wines Tasting Room, which also had a fantastic outdoor area, and definitely seemed to be a favorite among the locals – it seemed like everyone knew everyone!
For dinner we made reservations at The Lark, which we’d heard from multiple people was the MUST EAT destination for our trip. Lemme tell ya, it did not disappoint! We had a fantastic table outside, complete with heaters for when the sun set and it started to cool down. Since this trip was for our anniversary, they greeted us with some champagne before going through the menu.
The food was fantastic, and we (per usual) ordered way too much. The oysters were a standout, and we had a blast with our waiter. The people at the restaurant were also phenomenal. It seemed everyone was there to celebrate an anniversary or a wedding that hadn’t happened because of COVID, and at one point everyone in the patio seemed to be buying each other desserts and cheers-ing to one another. It was truly a special evening!
We walked back to our hotel area, and weren’t quite ready to turn in, so we stopped at The Red Piano bar for a nightcap. They are right on the main drag, and had an extensive menu of cocktails. We each grabbed a whiskey drink and enjoyed the people watching before bed.
In the morning we stopped by Oat Bakery to grab some delicious baked goods and coffee before heading out for lunch in Malibu at Geoffery’s, and our next destination, Santa Monica! Be sure to check out the full Pacific Coast Itinerary here!
