San Francisco to Sydney - Day 11

Day 11 : San Simeon to Monterey

Another early start today as we needed to be at Hearst Castle by 9:30am for our 10:00am tour. Tours to the Castle are scheduled every 20 minutes of the day, and they have a slightly militaristic and mechanistic feel to them. Such Swiss-clock like precision allows the tour operators to push nearly 1 million visitors through the Castle each year.

Hearst Castle, the dream and legacy of billionaire media magnate Willam Randolph Hearst, was built during the 1930s and 1940s at a present day cost of around US$150m. It is perched atop a hill, accessible via 5 miles of steep and winding road, and enjoys panoramic views of its surrounds. The ranch on which the Castle sits encompasses 250,000 acres, of which the 165-room mansion and its gardens, terraces and pools comprise 127 acres. Allegedly, the Castle's design was inspired by the architecture of famous European cities, but it maintains a grandeur all of its own.

If you were rich, and if you had a spare US$150m to toss around, you'd no more conceive anything like Hearst Castle than you would, say, of setting fire to the entire amount. It's an example of the worst excesses of the rich, coupled with the best intentions.

Every room, every wall, every table, every furnishing, every part of the mansion whispers money and lots of it. Some of the decorative pieces, such as tapestries and artworks, are expensive because they're real and they're rare. Some are just expensive fakes.

On the left is a photo of the outdoor pool at the mansion, the Neptune Pool. It's exquisite; it seems far too perfect to swim in, though it did function as a guest pool during the time that Hearst lived in the mansion.

Above is a photo of the indoor Roman Pool at the Castle, another triumph of form over function. Its major purpose was to allow Hearst to show off the 900,000 tiles used in its construction, and it looks stunning. It also looks far too beautiful to be used, though it too was swum in by Hearst's guests.

To be fair to Hearst though, it does seem that he built Hearst Castle with the intention of creating something grand and permanent, something that could house his amazing collection of antiquities, something that he could share with his famous friends during his lifetime and then bequeath to the people of California on his death. It's pretty impressive as monuments go - sort of guesthouse cum museum.

We came back to Monterey via San Luis Obispo, stopping at Morro Bay (see photo at right) for a lunch of Fish & Chips - something that Debbie has been keen to try almost since the day she arrived in the US. The meal was good, but I couldn't bring myself to douse my chips in the malted vinegar that sat in bottles on every table.

Before dinner tonight, we walked the Monterey Recreation Trail and came across the sign depicted at left. Neither of us were clear on the right-of-way laws when a pedestrian encounters a kayak, but we figured that kayaks, being larger and less manouverable than a pedestrian, should be allowed to pass unimpeded.

Originally posted by TC