We drove to the Hearst Castle and spent the day there in awe at the view of the Pacific Coast, amazing architecture, museum quality collection art, and all of the family history in that incredible space. We've been to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville a couple times before and the architectural detail on this Castle trumps that of the Vanderbilt's estate. It is not the largest home in the US, but the compound itself is incredible and feels like you are on the coast of some historic European Village. It's crazy to think about all the fun that was had as the movie star guests of Mr. Hearst came to visit the guesthouses. My personal favorite was seeing all of the silent film 'home movie' clips of Clark Gable and the dozens of other visiting celebrities at the 240,000 acre property.
The two pools were both incredible. The outdoor pool was a Grecian inspired space and would be an amazing experience to swim in. The indoor pool was very ornate and adorned from floor-to-ceiling [and in the pool] with blue and yellow glass and gold leaf tile. Both pools were flanked in white marble sculpture and were astounding.
lighting fixture inside the silent film room
the indoor pool
[Our photos from that specific day are gone, but the ones included were from our Day 12 experience]
After we left the castle we stopped at Elephant Seal Beach just a few miles up the road and saw some adorable animals. [see photos on Day 12]
We decided to drive up the Pacific Coast highway and take dozens of photos along the way. It was an amazing experience and we were still in awe of how beautiful it was. The Rocky beaches, steep cliffs, and water crashing on the craggy coast was so picture perfect. It seemed the farther north we went the more beautiful it was. Every 10 miles or so the scenery was totally different and we enjoyed the drive even though it was twice as long as other routes we could have taken.
Andrew was sleeping through most of it and I kept waking him up to show him how beautiful it was. He remained pretty sluggish through all of it until we had to stop at a gas station and fuel was 4.75 a gallon. That woke him up! haha. Lucky for us we were driving the Prius and one gallon got us the rest of the way to San Fran!
That evening we drove to Oakland, got new tires, picked up a handful of needed supplies and had the oil changed. We had reservations that night at a really nice Fairfield Marriott in order to repack the car, do laundry, upload photos while we had free internet, prep all the yummy farm fresh veggies we'd bought from a farmstead and finally to get a couple nights of good sleep.
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