One New Thing Daily: Santa Barbara Courthouse & Public Library

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Santa Barbara Courthouse & Public Library

New things today, went to the Santa Barbara Courthouse & Public Library. We sort of unexpectedly ran into them. We were just planning on going to State Street and walk around, when we parked at some random parking lot which sort of landed us right next to both locations.

We left the parking lot and saw the Santa Barbara Library. So cool so decided to walk in. They have a Faulkner wing and when we went it was a gallery filled with what looked like local art. Inside it was half modern and half old world bookshelves. It was cute and I would gladly spend a respite from shopping there in the future. Looked like a super cozy bookshop inside.

Then right next to this, we saw this huge tower with people looking out into the city. So decided to check that out too. It was this gorgeous old Spanish architecture building, with beautiful grounds and a huge tower. Turned out it was the Santa Barbara Courthouse and what we first saw was the Observation Tower. Weird thing is, we've been to Santa Barbara quite a few times and never saw this building before, but its been there forever so it was an exciting first!

It was gorgeous! It was absolutely awesome inside and out. The grounds were so pretty, and the tower had fantastic views of Santa Barbara. We went when there was gorgeous light and it was a beautiful day. It was truly truly awesome! I loved the mosaic tiles throughout the building. There was this great spiral staircase and just the doors, the borders around the doors, the floors, ceilings, everything was really really beautiful. This could be one of my favorite buildings. Best of all, it's free to go inside and wander around. We're going to go there again, and I will take snippets of photos from the internet and post them down here, but it's quite a photographers paradise :) I love this building and Spanish architecture - very cool.