Kelly enjoyed himself also but didn't want his picture taken.
Jarrett and I drove down the coast through wine country on our honeymoon, so this drive brought back lots of memories. We stayed at a bed and breakfast near Paso Robles in these hills.
When we got back to the coast, it was foggy and cool. I love the fog!
We arrived at Hearst Castle just in time for our tour. None of us knew anything about it, so we signed up for the Experience Tour, which is geared towards first time visitors. The castle was incredibly decadent. William Hearst's father made a forune in silver and bought tons of land in California. When William Hearst had made his own fortune in newspapers, he started the castle. He was 57, at that time the average life expectancy was only 61. The castle was in it's prime for about ten years- until Hearst ran out of money. After seeing the castle, I'm amazed his money lasted even 10 years!
Hearst had collected tons of amazing art, artifacts and arcitecture pieces throughout his career and had them built into the castle. His builder was one of the first women ever to earn an engineering degree. The castle contains ancient Egyptian pieces, 2000 year old roman artifacts, tapestries and statues from around the world, etc. It was baffling to think of the origins of everything. He also had a full zoo on the premesis, one of the animals in his open range area was the zebra, the zebras have continued to live there and breed. On our way out, we actually saw a herd of zebras grazing near the coast!
The tour was very impressive. The castle is a bit inland, maybe two miles in. It's in the hills, so you can see all the way down to the water. Riley loved the castle, so far it's her favorite part of the trip. Here she is at the Neptune Pool. It's one of the most recognizable places. Part of Sparticus was filmed there and it was on the cover of Life Magazine in the fifties.
Here's James at the entrance to one of the guest houses. Neither of the guest houses had kitchens because Hearst insisted that his guests always dine with him in the main house. Supposedly Winston Churchill requested tea in his guest room and Hearst said no and made him come to the main kitchen for it.
This is the entrance to the castle, some of the sculptures on the front are over 400 years old. On the terrace out front, there were marble pieces that were 2000 years old. There were equally impressive things in the castle but there was no flash photography allowed so I didn't get any good pictures.
This is the Roman Pool, it was the last stop on our tour and it was gorgeous. The ladders in and out are all marble. The entire pool is 10' deep but the tiles are laid specially in order to make the bottom appear curved. The gold tiles on the floor and walls are actually real gold, 22 carat. Is it any wonder Hearst ran out of money?
After the castle, we headed on to our next stop, San Francisco! Unfortunatly, the GPS was confused and lead us into the heart of Castro instead of our RV park. Poor Jarrett had to manuver the RV through super narrow, crowded, one way streets in the dark...did I mention that he's a superhero?
I've been following along with your adventures since your mom mentioned this blog on hers. I'm particularly fascinated because renting an RV and driving around the country, especially the western half, is high on my list of things I want to do in the next five years. My dad says when he retires - or at least gives up one of his three jobs in the US or South Africa! - he would love to go with us.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm keeping a keen eye also on how you work out the practicalities of RV travel (and how often it needs repair, parts, or general coaxing-along). Thanks for sharing your adventures with us!
Oh, oh, we went to Hearst castle when I was a kid, it was so cool. I loved the pool. We also went here and we loved it. www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! I had no idea it was so opulent...
ReplyDeleteI hope you get-together with L and J was nice, I'm glad you got to visit with them.
MamaGames, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'll have to include more of the RV details, I've mostly been leaving those out. My only unfortunate advice is to avoid driving the RV through San Francisco. It was really stressful and difficult. Our RV park was just South of the city so it wasn't bad but to continue, we had to go through the heart of town- it was really hard. Other than that, our biggest problem has been finding gas stations that can accomodate the RV. It's hard to find one where we're not blocking traffic and that we're able to pull out of easily.
ReplyDeleteLiese, I wish I had read this earlier, we're two states away now but the Winchester House sounds very cool. We'll have to do that next time.