20 Attractions to Explore Near Franceschi Park

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.

This majestic and beautiful 35-acre Skofield Park is nestled high in the foothills adjacent to Rattlesnake Canyon Trail and along Mission Creek. It is covered with large grassy meadows and numerous native shade trees. It is a best place for walking, hiking, and wildlife viewing. This is the only city park with reservable camping areas for nonprofit youth groups.

Mission Santa Barbara is a Spanish mission in Santa Barbara, California. Often referred to as the ‘Queen of the Missions,’ it was founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén. Mission Santa Barbara, like other California missions, was built as part of a broader effort to consolidate the Spanish claim on Alta California in the face of threats from rival empires.

Royal Presidio of Santa Barbara, is a former military installation in Santa Barbara, California, United States. The presidio was built by Spain in 1782, with the mission of defending the Second Military District in California. The park contains an original adobe structure called El Cuartel, which is the second oldest surviving building in California; only the chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano, known as "Father Junípero Serra's Church", is older.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located in downtown Santa Barbara, California. It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which includes Asian, American, and European art that spans 4,000 years from ancient to modern. Its permanent collection includes more than 27,000 works of art, including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, ceramics, glass, jades, bronzes, lacquer and textiles

The Santa Barbara Historical Museum is located in Santa Barbara, California, U.S. It features relics from Chumash, Spanish, Mexican, Yankee, and Chinese cultures, including artifacts, photographs, furnishings and textiles, dating as far back as the 15th century.

This was the residence of the fifth commandant of the Presidio de Santa Barbara, José de la Guerra y Noriega, founder of the Guerra family of California. It is now a popular site for community and private events.The site is currently owned and operated by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation as a historic house museum. The address is 15 East De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara, California.

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is a 78-acre botanical garden, containing over 1,000 species of rare and indigenous plants. Located in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, the Garden’s 78 acres of living collections feature more than 1,200 taxa of California native plants from all regions of the state. The Garden has helped safeguard 34 highly endangered plant species, imparted the value of plant and ecological conservation to thousands of visitors.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, a contemporary art museum, is at Santa Barbara, United States.The categories covered by MCASB involve various fields of design. It includes the topic of male and female, media, race, and geological study. It aims at displaying, expressing, discovering, and exploring the potential of the art and design in this era.

Shipwreck playground is a shipwreck-themed playground that was thoughtfully designed and modeled after an ocean schooner from the turn of the century. At Shipwreck Playground children can play on two awesome climbing structures as well as several interesting sculptures such as surfacing whales, a conch shell lighthouse, and a nautilus shell play area – all situated in a white beach sand and other soft surface material.

Ficus macrophylla, commonly known as the Moreton Bay fig or Australian banyan, is a large evergreen banyan tree of the family Moraceae native to eastern Australia, from the Wide Bay–Burnett region in the north to the Illawarra in New South Wales, as well as Lord Howe Island. Its common name is derived from Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia. It is best known for its imposing buttress roots.

Chase Palm Park along the Pacific Coast, in the heart of Santa Barbara, with its palm trees, is a very pleasent park for walking, running, and biking. This is an extensive park that encompasses much of both sides of East Cabrillo Boulevard and includes a palm tree-lined park adjacent to East Beach. An oceanfront bike path and walkway runs the length of Chase Palm Park from Stearns Wharf along East Beach.

East Beach located in Santa Barbara, California, United States, is often the first beach seen upon entering the city limits. It is separated from West Beach by Stearn's Wharf, and is proximal to downtown Santa Barbara. East Beach is the primary beach for tourists, as some of the major Santa Barbara hotels face this beach. The stretch of beach is not frequented as a surfing destination. East Beach is also home to the Santa Barbara Junior Lifeguards, who operate for seven weeks during the summer.

This is a wiode sandy beach located in the west of and adjacent to Stearns Wharf Pier at State Street. This is also where the outriggers hold lessons and where many kayaks, windsurfers, and sailboats set out. Thousands of tourists on Stearns Wharf look out at West beach every day because the wharf is actually built on top of it.

The Santa Barbara Zoo is located on 30 acres  near the ocean in Santa Barbara, California. It was built on the site of what was known as the Child Estate. The zoo has been ranked numerous times as one of the nation's best small zoos. It has more than 500 animals in numerous exhibits, including capybara and California condors, and is famous for having had a giraffe with a crooked neck.