California Travel Tip: Hearst Castle

We toured Hearst Castle last week during a drive up the coast.  It sits up in the hills above San Simeon, near Cambria.  It’s a fascinating place to stop and a good place to break your journey as you travel along Highway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Monterey.

William Randolph Hearst created the estate during the 1920s and 30s.  It is filled with antiquities from Spain and Italy, some of them over 1,000 years old.  Hearst wanted to create a feeling of the Mediterranean from over 500 years ago.

There are a number of different tours you can take.  The house and grounds are so vast it would be impossible to take it all in in one go.  The best option is to start with tour Number One.  It’s a basic tour; you see the main rooms in Casa Grande including the movie theater and one of the guesthouses.  You also see the two swimming pools.  The remaining tours take you on other sections of the house, or the garden during the summer.  There’s also an evening tour, which features people dressed up in period costume bringing the house to life.

Whether you appreciate architecture and antiques or not, the castle is fascinating just to see what Hearst achieved.  Buses take you up the winding road to the estate; it’s an incredibly remote spot.  On the tour you learn that all the antiques were brought in by boat to the San Simeon pier and then driven very slowly up the hill.  Quite an amazing feat back in the 20s and 30s.

The stories with the castle are intriguing.  Movie stars, presidents, prime ministers came to stay and our tour guide created an incredibly romantic view of the indoor pool at midnight, lit by orbs, the water steaming from the heat and Marlene Dietrich taking a swim.

Hearst also loved animals, so along with the huge collection of cattle, there were polar bears, zebras and deer.  If you look out, just south of the castle as you drive up, you may still see zebras.

The castle is surrounded by dry, barren hills, making this lush oasis even more impressive.  The heat is intense so Hearst didn’t spend much time there in the summer but with properties in Mexico, New York and St Donat’s Castle in Wales, he had other places to spend his summers.

We visited many years ago and were surprised to find a brand new visitors center this time.  It’s very well organized; drinks and snacks are available along with a vast array of Heart Castle logo items.  The air conditioning is very welcome too.

It’s worth a stop.  And as you take the bus up to the estate, just imagine the people that have taken that road before you as you wind back and for.  I’m certain the castle has a great deal of stories to tell.