Santa Barbara!

Jamie Crick’s postcards from America

Having just returned from an amazing 10 day trip to California I thought I’d share some of the pictures with you.

We flew into Santa Monica which is at the northern tip of Los Angeles. It is an 11 hour flight from the UK and you gain 8 hours to the day so by the time I took this picture of sunset on Santa Monica beach I felt exhausted. You can see Santa Monica Pier silhouetted against the last rays of the sun.

Travelling up the coast my next stop was the beautiful town of Santa Barbara. Much quieter than L.A most of it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1925 and the city decided to rebuild in a Spanish Colonial Style which makes it very beautiful. Towering above the buildings all along the beach are these huge Palm trees which are such a feature of Santa Barbara.

One of the only buildings to survive the Earthquake is the old Spanish Mission which was founded in 1786 when California was still a Spanish colony. Here the cross on the green in front of the mission chapel is dressed for Easter.

Leaving Santa Barbara I drove north through the wine country and took the legendary Highway 1. Built in the 30′s as part of FDR’s ‘New Deal’ it snakes through the step hills, clinging to the cliffs. Here on a misty morning you can see the hills stretching for miles and reaching out to sea in the area known as ‘Big Sur’.

A short distance from my hotel was Pfeiffer Beach where the Pacific roars onto an idyllic sandy beach.

Walking through the giant redwood trees of ‘Big Sur’ I came across this stunning circle of trees. Local Native American tribes consider it a sacred place and to me it looked like a cathedral of trees.

My final destination was one of my favourite cities – San Francisco. It is full of beautiful architecture and the hills mean there is a view to enjoy at almost every turn. On Sunday I walked up past the earthquake proof concrete Grace cathedral disguised as a gothic building and looked out over this view on local houses with the iconic Trans America building and in the distance the Bay Bridge.

4 replies | Reply to this

• Share