Italian Festival at Santa Barbara’s Old Mission

An Italian tradition comes to the steps of Santa Barbara’s Spanish mission during the Memorial Day holiday, May 27 through May 29. Artists will cover the mission’s asphalt piazza with more than 200 paintings, all created with colored chalk.

The three-day display is the city’s third Italian street-painting festival. Called “I Madonnari” in honor of the Italian name for street painters, it celebrates a tradition continued in Italy since the 16th Century.

Artists will be of all ages and every talent level. They are only limited by the size of the pavement “canvases” that measure from 4 x 6 to 12 x 12 feet.

Each painting is sponsored by individuals and businesses, with donations to the Children’s Creative Project. The nonprofit program provides art experiences for elementary school children throughout Santa Barbara County.

Festival and Tour

Visitors can watch the street artists create and afterward can view the completed works. Festivities include a street market with Italian foods and musical entertainment adjacent to the piazza. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

If you go to the Madonnari festival, try to tour historic Mission Santa Barbara. In addition, visit the city’s botanical garden and natural history museum, both nearby in the foothills behind the mission.

To get to Mission Santa Barbara from Los Angeles, drive north on U.S. 101 to the Mission Street exit, go right about nine blocks to Laguna Street, then turn left to the mission grounds.

Sited on a hillside two miles from the ocean, the mission was started 204 years ago on the feast day of St. Barbara. Its founder was Father Fermin Lasuen, Spanish-born successor to Junipero Serra, who died after establishing nine of Alta California’s 21 missions.

Mission History

The church that stands at Mission Santa Barbara was built from local sandstone in 1820. Earthquakes destroyed three adobe churches erected earlier by the Chumash Indians.

The regal church is beyond a grassy expanse where the mission’s cattle and sheep once grazed. A feature is the building’s Roman facade, which was copied from an architect’s book and crowned by twin towers. It’s the only church in the mission chain with two towers.

Visit the church and mission compound by walking beyond the Moorish fountain to the museum, where self-guided tours begin. Early day artifacts that recall the mission’s past are displayed in eight rooms that were once living quarters for the padres.

Continue to the courtyard, where Indians were taught to make leather footwear and woolen garments and practiced other trades. They also raised crops to feed the large Chumash population at the mission.

Enter through a side door into the long church to see Mexican art from the 1700s and 1800s.

Church Graveyard

A side door, marked by skulls, leads to the cemetery with the vaults of padres and Santa Barbara pioneers, as well as the unmarked graves of about 4,000 Indians.

Beyond the cemetery gate, cross the road to view the stone ruins of the mission’s aqueduct, water reservoir, grist mill and tanning vats. In front of the Moorish fountain is a lavanderia , where the Indian women washed clothes.

Mission Santa Barbara is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday mornings the church is used for services and closed to tours until 1 p.m. Admission is $1, children under 16 free.

Drive to the right around the mission onto Mission Canyon Road that climbs up the Santa Ynez Mountain foothills. Look for signs and drive to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Marine Wonders

Next to the parking lot is the 72-foot skeleton of a blue whale that washed ashore at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1980. Other marine life, as well as animals, birds and insects, are on display inside the rambling Spanish-style buildings.

The museum began in 1916 with a collection of bird eggs that was expanded into a notable exhibit of birds, including waterfowl found along California’s shores. Also look for California’s native wild animals displayed in lifelike dioramas.

The Indian Hall has artifacts of various North American tribes and features the local Chumash. Special planetarium shows take place on Saturdays at 3 p.m. and Sundays at 1:30 and 4 p.m.

The natural history museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. Admission is $3, teen-agers $2, under 12 years $1 on weekends and holidays; entry on other days is by donation.

Drive back onto Mission Canyon Road and follow signs to continue north (with a brief jog on Foothill Road) to the tranquil Santa Barbara Botanical Garden.

Education in Native Plants

Covering 65 acres near Los Padres National Forest, the garden is devoted exclusively to the state’s native trees, shrubs and wildflowers. In the garden shop are trail maps to the various plants.

One walk covers a grove of coast redwoods, over a dam built in 1807 to supply water to the mission, then along Mission Creek and past desert flora back to the parking area.

Free guided tours are offered Sundays and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m., with an extra tour Sundays at 2 p.m. The garden shop is open daily and has plants for sale Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Visitors are welcome at the botanical garden every day without charge from 8 a.m. until dusk. However, no picnicking is permitted.

Get dining and lodging information by calling (805) 965-3021. Or stop at the new Visitors Information Center at the corner of Santa Barbara Street and Cabrillo Boulevard (two blocks east of Stearns Wharf). Hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

For more information about the Italian street-painting festival, contact its director, Kathy Koury, at (805) 963-8654.

Round trip from Los Angeles to Mission Santa Barbara is 220 miles.