San Simeon and La Cuesta Encantada

Living in the desert, we take any chance to go to the coast and enjoy the fair weather, cool breeze and wonderful ocean smell. All the flowers and salty scents that seem to foat there. This year we finally went to Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, in La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted hill). Something I wanted to do for a long time, but I didn't want to deal with strollers or tired little kids. Now that the kids are older, they had fun, and enjoyed the trip as well.

What a place that is! 165 rooms, tons of art, sculptures and original architectural European elements, beautiful vistas, way over-the-board details, like the gold floor by the Roman pool... And gardens to die for. Specially if you are not in good shape, because there's tons of stairs to climb to go all through them ;o)
All in all, it took W.R. Hearst 28 years to build it, and it still was not finished. Which is understandable, since his original plan was to build two small cottages, and he kept adding to it.

We went to 2 tours and I strongly recommend the "Upper Suites" tour. I'm sure all the tours are fine, but I liked the first so much more than the other, though the Grand Rooms has a movie with all kinds of famous people of the time, visiting the castle in those years.
For their copyright reasons I can't post pictures of the insides, but you can check out some of the art HERE

After that we went to Cambria, a place I love. Walked in the beach, relaxed just listening to the waves, enjoyed the blessed feeling.... then came back home.
I will come back tomorrow to post my recap of 2011.
Thanks for visiting!

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