Hearst Castle and California Highway 1

First let me show you that Big Toddle is still with me and a few pics to make up for losing the others from yesterday, which was a shame because who knows if we'll ever go back to Port San Louis :(















Here he is on a cool map of the pacific coast line and outside the Hearst Castle visitors centre - it's not easy finding places to snap him and I'm surprised no one's asked me what I'm doing ...


Ok I really do have to thank Richard again, not only was he excellent company at the sushi bar and very generous in making me feel welcome to California, but his advice to see Hearst Castle, near San Simeon and to take tour 2 (inside main upstairs living area, including Hearst's personal room) was spot on. It was amazing to see how one man's dream had come to life! The 40 mins movie was also breath taking - scenes of the ranch (as Hearst himself called it - never the castle, after all he had a real one of those in Wales!) landscape on a big screen = impressive. And informative in an entertaining way, particularly useful because I had no idea who he was - big in media (newspapers, making movies, etc) father had made money mining silver, had fun & lavish parties, including ones that were costume themed with everything laid on - costumes, make up artists, etc!


I got rather carried away snapping (without flash to preserve art/antiques) on the tour and have selected a few for you to enjoy :)







From a distance the "castle", up close, some of the fine ceiling art work, neptune pool.










There was also an indoor pool (underneath the tennis courts naturally) with lots of gold and a cool high diving board but the pool was too deep so Hearst allowed staff only to use it having spent millions of dollars on it! Nobody uses it now though because of health and safety - staff can use out door one. :)

Afterwards I hit the highway and stopped at various view points along the way - some planned like the one to see elephant seals, who at first I thought were dead but actually (thank goodness) were only snoozing, perhaps they'd had a big lunch? Plus a cheeky chipmunk who was incredibly brave and thought at one point might try and get in my car as I was leaving!!

Others were not planned either because I felt like it or because I had somebody chasing me aggressively when I was doing the speed limit ... I wasn't prepared to go higher than the limit because I didn't know what was around each corner and as far as I'm concerned if a sign says go slowly then there's probably a very good reason for it!

I've made really good progress on the highway through Big Sur, Carmel and I'm now in Monterey. I'm all set to go see Richard's other recommendation the Monterey Aquarium before driving on to see Aki in San Fran. We spoke tonight and sadly it looks like skiing in Lake Tahoe is off and fortunately plan B - visiting Nappa valley for some wine tasting and taking part in a Japanese Cherry Blossom festival are now on the schedule! :D

Special thanks to email messages from Shivani, Bilqees, Dawn, Jules, Sarah, Anita and Mosun re blog and please feel free to leave comments - just remember this is public though! On that note Big Toddle and I wish you all a good night.