While we were still planning this trip everyone we knew who had been before had said we must visit Hearst Castle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst
Newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, conceived of the idea of a grand mansion in the Mediterranean style on the land his parents bought along the central Californian coast. His memories of childhood camping on the hills above the Pacific led him to choose the spot on which the castle now stands.
He hired Julia Morgan, the first female civil engineering graduate of the University of California Berkley, to design and build the house for him. Begun in 1919, it took 28 years to complete, not least because of the ever-changing demands of Hearst.
With money no object, Hearst bought hundreds of European medieval and Renaissance antiquities to fill the house. ( *More on this later in this blog.)
He also created one of the largest private zoos in the US. When he lost much of his money in 1937 he donated most of the animals to Californian zoos, and we were told that there were still some zebras that could occasionally be seen grazing along Highway 1. Guess what?? We were lucky enough to see some that day.
The castle was closing early the day we visited as there was going to be a private Hearst family party there that evening. (On W.R. Hearst's death in 1951 the family gave the castle to the state of California........wise move as the family / Hearst Corporation would no longer have to pay taxes and the huge sums essential for its upkeep and maintenance.........on the condition that nothing of value was sold or changed, and that the family could still use it as they wished.)
We wondered if Patty Hearst was going to be there that night. All of you reading this who are 'of a certain age' will remember the name. For the rest, click on the link below. Hollywood couldn't have invented better!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst
All the available info. advised us to book tour tickets in advance, so Sue decided to look at Tripadvisor to see which tour was recommended. Amazingly, reviewer after reviewer said they'd been 4 or 5 times, and all sang the castle's praises. NOT your usual Tripadvisor fare. So, was this going to turn out to be a wonderful place?
We booked on Tour 1 (the Grand Tour, recommended for first-timers) so we parked at the Visitors' Centre and got on the shuttle bus that takes you up the hill, no private cars being allowed; we'd decided to leave the film-show till after we'd been in the house. Our guide met us, and off we went but not until we'd all had a good talking-to about NOT walking on the rugs, NOT touching anything, NOT using flash-photography, NOT thinking for yourself about what you were about to see.....perhaps he didn't say that, but it felt like it. We could touch the iron railings put in for visitors, though.
William Hearst, at the age of 9, had gone on a Grand Tour of Europe with his mother and this had left an indelible mark on him. He'd loved the ancient and Renaissance architecture and art he'd seen, never forgetting it, and set out to recreate it in his mansion. BUT as you approach the castle you get the first evidence that he'd got it all horribly wrong. This building with its bell towers (ultimately used to store water) looks at first a bit like a cathedral but they also look a bit like minarets. We learned from the guide that there was originally only one tower planned but Hearst changed his mind. Money was no object, so if you can have two why not!!
We both thought the front facade was rather gross. This was a man who in the 1920s wielded in his newspapers the kind of power held in the past by emperors and popes, and he wanted us to know it by mixing-and-matching symbols of both .
One of the smaller cottages built for guests.
The Neptune Pool, still used occasionally by the Hearst family and Hearst Corporation employees during specific celebrations.
The indoor Roman Pool was magnificent with...
and the usual Roman statues. Michaelangelo hadn't been so coy.
The tour inside took us through some of the downstairs reception rooms. The opulence and grandeur were everywhere to be seen that Hearst used to impress his eminent guests: scores of Hollywood stars stayed here (including Greta Garbo, Marlene Deitrich, Bette Davis, David Niven, Bob Hope), as well as 2 US Presidents and J.F. Kennedy before he was elected.
At one point the guide showed us a replica of the Mace that had been part of the ceremonial regalia of the Irish Parliament in Dublin.
He told us that the original had had to be given back after Hearst's death in 1951 after a legal case had proved he had had it as a result of an 'unofficial sale', i.e. theft. When Sue asked how many other 'unofficial sales' had resulted in similar hand-overs, our guide got rather coy, said there had been a successful case brought by a German (presumably Jewish) family who reclaimed art work illegally taken from them by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s, and which had ended up in Hearst Castle, and then changed the subject.
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| 16th century Flemish tapestry |
The last room we saw was the private cinema.
21 OCTOBER:
Sunday, a day of rest, and the weather had improved a little. Time to do a little more exploring.
San Simeon:
The tiny town of San Simeon (now no more than a handful of buildings) existed primarily to support the construction efforts up the hill at Hearst Castle. The town dock provided a place to unload tons of marble, piles of antiquities and dozens of workers.
The remaining structure of the old pier is now found on the William Randolph Hearst Memorial State Beach.
The general store and post office acted as a central gathering point for the whole community.
Morro Bay:
Later in the day, time to test the beach and see if the weather had improved. We drove along the coast a few miles to Morro Bay and stretched out in a sand dune.
We knew that Morro Bay had been prosperous in the 1950s and 1960s as the hub of the abalone fishing industry when divers modernised from hard hat diving to 'hookah-gear'. But its prosperity waned in the 1970s with much of the fleet relocating to Santa Barbara when the resurgent sea otter population ate most of the abalone near Morro Bay.
We thought we'd have a closer look at the town then but couldn't find it! There were a lot of houses, a small food store and a very good ice-cream shop, but nothing else that we could see.
So, a little further along the coast to Cayucos. And there we came across a flea-market / car boot sale in the main street, the first US market we'd seen. In many ways it was remarkably like the St Germain Saturday market, with plenty of miscellaneous pieces of furniture and bricabrac, along with some nice crafts.
http://www.cayucosbythesea.com/history.html
Earthquake yesterday:
A chance conversation with Lesa, who owns and runs a dog and cat grooming business in the town , and her friends: and we were asked whether the earthquake the previous night had woken us! What earthquake??
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc71863625#summary
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