William Randolph Hearst was a man of contradictions, apparently. He thought of his estate in San Simeon as a ‘ranch,’ and wanted his guests to feel at home, so much so that everyone ate with paper napkins and used ketchup and mustard out of their store-bought bottles. All the while, they were sitting in a lavish banquet hall with an imported medieval ceiling in the more extravagant private estate in the country. Or something like that. We took a tour (#1, the introductory tour, out of a possible five tours) this weekend, and learned a lot from our excellent tour guide who, thankfully, was not stricken with tour guide-itis, and actually seemed to think about and understand what she was saying.
To get to San Simeon, we left on Saturday morning and struggled our way out of LA, stopping for a late lunch in Santa Barbara. It was too hot and we were too hungry to really enjoy Santa Barbara; a downtown shopping street with every store you see in every other city was all we saw. We’ll be back, and I hope we find the other, unique parts of town. From there, we made our way to the Sanford Winery, where we sampled some of their wines and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings. We pulled into our our B&B, and found a wedding reception going on as we walked in. We decided to get out of their way, and headed to San Luis Obispo for the rest of the evening.
We ate at Firestone Grill, where I had the simple, and simply named, “Pig Sandwich,” as we watched six different college football games on ridiculously large televisions around the room. We wandered the local bookstores, and then headed back to the B&B for some mid-1990s Trivial Pursuit. The next morning, we had a delicious breakfast and some typically awkward B&B guest mingling before setting off for Hearst Castle. We had no idea there would be so many people, and we found parking in some auxiliary lot on the grass across the street. We headed to the visitors center, picked up our tickets and waited for our shuttle to head up the hill. Way, way, way up the hill, as it turns out, up five miles of winding roads to the castle grounds. Our two-hour tour was great, and we got just a taste of the extravagance and attention to detail that are the hallmarks of the whole vast retreat.
After the tour, we headed down the coast to the charming town of Cambria, where we had sandwiches on the beach and waded into the very cold Pacific before heading back to the B&B to get ready for dinner. We ate at Steamer’s in Pismo Beach, and had a delicious meal (fresh Alaskan halibut!) overlooking the water. A quick drive Sunday morning got us home in time to get ready for the week ahead, and to start thinking about our next weekend trip.
