Franceschi Park - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

Parma Park is a park located in Santa Barbara, California.The park is situated on State Route 192 about one mile west of its junction with State Route 144. The park itself is located in chaparral and oak-covered hills. The park is relatively primitive, with a handful of picnic tables; however it has several hiking and horse trails. The park is also the major landing zone for hang gliders and paragliders launching from Gibraltar Road.

This massive Rose Garden hosts over 1500 varieties of roses and sits across from the Santa Barbara Mission and is beautiful for a wedding ceremony. Additionally, the collection hosts beds with ancient varieties, such as Gallicas, Albas, and Damasks in various states of health. Other roses maintained within the garden include Old Garden Roses, Hybrid Perpetuals originally cultivated during the 1800s.

Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens is a stunning park spanning a square block in downtown Santa Barbara. There are 75 different tree and plant species and you can enjoy walking paths, picnic areas, and a picturesque Gazebo. The park also has a koi pond where you’ll find visitors feeding resident ducks.

This is a 10-acre park located at the cross section of Laguna and E. Los Olivos Street and spans between Alameda Padré Serra and Mission Ridge Road. This monument to Santa Barbara was the tenth Californian Mission built by Spanish Franciscans. The grounds contain ruins of Mission Santa Barbara’s old waterworks, tannery vats, grassed areas, and the City Rose Garden and so more.

This is a small urban forest with a year round creek. Filled with an abundance of rocks and sandstone boulders deposited there by an ancient landslide, and roofed by oak trees, the park affords a diversity of topography. The towering trees are lush and the park offers shaded picnic areas, short trails, and the area is strewn with large sandstone boulders.

Alameda Park is a two-block park in downtown Santa Barbara. As one of the city's oldest parks, it is home to a variety of rare trees and plants. These horticultural treasures include the soapbark tree, the white ironwood, and the bunya-bunya tree, just to name a few.