When the Central Coast vacation was planned, the first thing we knew we surely wanted to do was tour the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. The opulent house was something to see, but by the end of the week, some of the other amazing sights of creation we witnessed actually topped it.
A super brief history of the castle is this: the Hearst family was crazy rich from silver mining and owned a ton of land on the coast. The son, William Randolph, continued in the family's wealth with a mega newspaper and movie producing industry. He decided he wanted to build the home of his dreams, one that was inspired by sights and architecture of real castles in Europe, and dedicated a big part of his later life to designing and building this imposing mansion on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific.
We started the tour with a bus ride winding up the hills. We learned how Mr. Hearst loved animals and saw where he once kept his personal zoo.
The tour went on for a little over an hour and showed us all sorts of glamorous and glorious aspects of the castle and Mr. Hearst's famed art collection. You may be wondering how the girls did on a tour of this length and nature and the answer is GREAT! As you can image, Ella loved the fancy house and listed it among her favorite things that we did during the week.
Throughout the tour, we encountered no ceiling that was un-fancy. Each time we looked up, we were impressed. I love this moment I caught Delia and Dave in. She kept whispering, "Wooow! Wooow!"
One view of the ocean.
The castle's outdoor Neptune Pool is pretty famous.
The property is divided up into La Casa Grande (the big huge house Mr. Hearst lived in) and several guest houses that every significant star from the golden age of film has stayed in.
The guest houses were set up with clothes, shoes and accessories from the era. The display of fancy dresses delighted Ella!
We played the "If you could have any room from the castle in your house, what would it be?" game and it was unanimous that the indoor Roman pool was the one to choose. The grand movie theatre was a second choice. Our guide told us that because of Mr. Hearst's connections to the industry, many big name movies, like Gone With the Wind, were actually premiered for the first time at his home for his personal parties!
The castle is so humongous that the tour we picked for first time visitors just barely scratched the surface. Die hard tourists can take more extensive tours of the gardens, guest houses, libraries, etc. What we saw was just right for us, though-- enough to say we saw it!
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