Santa Barbara/Solvang

A couple of weekends ago Adam and I did a little road trip up to Santa Barbara. We wanted to do something special for our first Valentine’s together as a married couple, so we thought what better idea than to spend a weekend away? We stayed at the Santa Barbara Hotel on State Street because we wanted to be walking distance from the shops, restaurants, etc. It ended up being the perfect location because we could just walk around without having any stress of trying to find parking, etc.

For Valentine’s dinner, we made reservations at Bouchon, which is a French inspired restaurant. They had it all decorated on the inside for the holiday, which made it such a romantic experience. Also, the food was absolutely incredible! We will definitely be back there again someday.

We stumbled upon a gluten free bakery/café called Lilac Patisserie and immediately fell in love. Both Adam and I eat on a gluten free diet, so this was like finding a gold mine for us! It’s honestly really hard to find spots that are completely gluten free. Needless to say, we ended up for multiple breakfasts as well as late night dessert runs. We miss it already!

We also did a day trip out of Santa Barbara to the sweet little town of Solvang. We both hadn’t been before so we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but it far exceeded our expectations. It’s an adorable Danish inspired town, with Danish bakeries, architecture, and even horse drawn carriages. It was very fairytale-like! I immediately tried to convince Adam to take me to Denmark for real, ha! Also, Solvang has lots of wine tasting spots and is located very close to the Santa Ynez region so we spent some time there wine tasting as well.

We can’t wait to go back again sometime to do it all over again!