Hearst Castle

Friday, March 12th

     What a beautiful morning!  The sun is shining in San Simeon, the ocean waves are crashing onto shore about a long par 5 away from our hotel.  There are even surfers in the water this morning before 8:00 a.m.  We stayed at the San Simeon Lodge, where our sleep was on spring filled beds.  I felt them all!   This morning we go to breakfast at the lodge, only to find the restaurant is closed due to “renos.”  Funny how hotels and lodges, when their only purpose is to provide you with a clean comfortable bed, and possibly food, sometimes cannot deliver on their sole reason for existence. It would be like going to a saw sharpening shop, and find that they cannot actually sharpen your saw!

    Anyway, this will not deter us from having a great day as it is the first day of full  sunshine for us.  We find a super breakfast across the highway at the Best Western, and head on up to the Hearst Castle.

     What an amazing location for an equally amazing castle.  Mr. William Randolph Hearst sure knew how to pick a location!  High atop a grassy hilltop we see the Castle.  The tour starts from the visitors centre with a 5 mile bus ride up this hill surrounded by range land that is still owned by the Hearst family today. Hearst Corporation runs the cattle ranch, and they sill use the airport that was build for WR Hearst’s plane. WR Hearst loved animals and had rare and beautiful grazing animals, as well as  a zoo with bears, giraffes, polar bears and zebras.  The zebras here roam with the cattle.  We did not see any today, however the tour guide said that it causes quite a stir on the highway for tourists that do not know they are still kept on the ranch-who ever has seen zebras grazing with cows- in the US?!

     The Hearst family owned the over  of 330 square miles of land which included 60 miles of coastline.  You could ride for 4 days on a horse and not get to the end of the boundary.  Man, now that is what I call a back yard!

     We see probably one of the most famous pools in the world.  Most people have seen it in magazines or on the shows of the rich and famous, we got to see it in person.  Wowie Kazowie!  I wanted to dip my foot in it, but we were strictly told that we could touch the concrete or the wright iron hand rails on the staircases, nothing else.

    The tour we took was 1 of 4 tours of the Castle and surroundings.  It really is worth seeing if anyone is in this area.  They have a large Visitor centre, a  4 minute movie called “WR Hearst building a dream”, really good restaurant which serves beef that is raised by the Hearst Corporation.  In April they start tours of the gardens, which would be totally great.  On the drive up and also viewing from the numerous balconies showed that WR Hearst also loved nature, beautiful things, and with an unlimited budget, well...I think you get the picture.

      Its such a beautiful day, we go down to the beach to enjoy the sun and the surf.  While walking out on the pier, I see this fin - first thought a shark, then the dolphin broke the surface!  In the wild!  We were lucky to see half a dozen  bottlenose dolphins swimming in the pier area  and the bay. Soooooo Coool! 

    It takes us about 2 hours to travel the coast to Carmel.  While stopping at the many view points, one was filled with Sea Lions pups and males sleeping on the sand.  So neat to see these creatures in the wild and at home in their home. The clouds rolled in and we had some terrific rain showers, but the views were spectacular!  We had a super day!