Thursday 5th January 2015- Hearst Castle at San Simeon

A good early start and we picked up a salad for lunch and were making good time for the first ten minutes and then ran in to some road repairs and a diversion which delayed us about 35 minutes, brilliant.

Pacific Coast Road

The coast road from here down to Los Angeles is really beautiful in places with lots of bays and white sand and occasional you lots of cars where people are out surfing. Just before we reached Hurst Castle there was a large beach where there were literally hundreds of elephant seals and some even trying to get on to the road it seems but were restrained by a metal fence. Clearly if you like this mammal this is the place to visit.

We arrived at Hurst Castle and slightly surprised to see the car park full of chemical toilets? It would appear that in this area the water shortage is so severe that they have resorted to this form of sanitation for guests to this location, not nice really.

The Front Door

The house whoops castle is absolutely massive and was of course owned by the late Randolph Hearst and spent a fortune on this massive place which now needs a lot of renovating. They have split the castle in to four areas and these are all separate trips so the see the lot would cost you about $100.0 not cheap really. We did what they call the Grand Room tour whereby you are up to the castle by tour bus and then they spend 45 minutes about the history of the place particularly the famous guests who used to frequent the place. We did the official tour then a short walk around before catching the bus back to the Visitor Information Centre and include was the film covering the owners life story which was quite interesting.

The house in Noels view is that it done by a guy who had more money than style as he has completely different styles in each room, some Italian and Spanish and also bits from Scotland and UK and the house design overall is a bit of a mess.

We left there about 16.00 and joined the traffic heading south until we reached the Hampton Hotel in Arroyo Grande and checked in. We still had quite a bit of salad leftover and considered a Domino’s Pizza but they did not deliver to our neck of the woods and so the Hotel receptionist recommended the seafood joint next door and I must say we were very pleased with the food.

Then back to the Hotel for a nights rest before we head off tomorrow to a place in the middle of nowhere called Barstow for the night. Must get the car washed tomorrow as its filthy, it was very dirty when we collected it and I have lodged a complaint over this.