Hello readers… another post on our visit to the Spanish Missions in California.

Finally, it was the day  were going to visit  Mission San Buenaventura, Mission by the Sea. Named  for Saint Bonaventure, a 13th century Franciscan cardinal and renowned philosopher. The  very last mission  we were going to see – of the 21st of all the Spanish Missions in California. Here is the front of the church seen from the other side of the street. The church has 5 bells, the oldest dating to 1781.

The first church was destroyed by a fire , the second was abandoned during construction. The present church was not completed before 1809 and was almost completely destroyed  by earthquakes and tidal waves in 1812. another earthquake damaged the church in 1925 and was repaired in 1950.

This Mission is located in Ventura.  On Easter Sunday March 31, 1782, Father Serra  raised a cross and celebrated Mass to found his 9th and final mission.  He died  two years later before the founding of Mission  Santa Barbara.

At each of the missions, we see a statue of Fr. Junipero Serra.

We visited the garden with a beautiful fountain.

In  the church, lots of restoration was underway .

It might be odd that we wanted to see all the missions  as we are not people going to church and we are not Americans.  As I often said they are nice places to see with lots of history . It gave us a good reason to stop in all the cities  where there is a mission.

The very first mission we visited was in March 2013. It was  Mission  San Juan Capistrano.  On that day, I had  purchased a  postcard showing the location of the 21 missions in California. Soon after  we made  plans to see more of them.   The last one we visited  was on February  20, 2017.  I am quite certain that many people living in California have not visited them all. If you read this and found it interesting, let me know. And I hope you still continue to read my blog on different places I visit.

Thank you .