Hearst Castle

After a lovely night on the winery/farm, I woke up to the sounds of crowing roosters, chickens, pigeons, and horses. 

Temperatures dipped into the 40's overnight, but at least my furnace is keeping things warm. I headed out crossing, over a beautiful rural highway filled with vineyards, and wineries, too many to count, as I headed towards the Pacific California Highway route 1. 

I will definitely bring a designated driver, next time I'm in this area, so I can sample these local wines!

I arrived in time to the 9:30am "grand room" tour at Hearst Castle, which is a California State Park. Fortunately, since it's chilly, drizzly rain, and very foggy. I felt confident about leaving Jo Jo inside the RV. 

The tour bus took us up to the top of a mountain to the castle, and showed us a few main rooms, and gave us a lot of history on William Randolph Hearst, his family, and the means to his wealth. At an older age of almost 60, he decided to build the castle of his dreams, images of his youthful years, into this massive estate, that took over 15 years to build, on hundreds of acres. It was definitely the go-to place for the Hollywood elite, and important political figures of the time (1920-30's). I was fascinated to learn that the ceiling in the dining room dated back to the time of Christopher Columbus. And they are in a 10-year restoration, to clean and repair the ceiling, which is full of hand-painted details. Back in the day, there was a lot of tobacco smoking, which acted as a soot layer clouding over these paintings.

Our tour guide of 13 years, was quite knowledgeable, and assertive about maintaining the rules, and keeping our tour in line. This is a very busy place with a revolving door of hundreds of people on different types of tours. It's nice to know that this personal and private residence is now open to the public, to display a time and place in history. The gardens, pools, and art were equally impressive.


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