California road trip, part 3

On Saturday 30th August we woke up early at the Courtesy Inn in San Simeon and drove the few miles to the Hearst Castle Visitor Centre so we were there immediately at 8 o'clock when it opened. It was a good call to be there early, since it meant we got tickets even though we had no advance bookings - all of the later tours were full. So at 8:20 we got on the bus which drove us up to Hearst Castle on the first of the five guided tours available.

Hearst Castle is a 165 room Renaissance-Moorish-Medieval holiday house built on top of a high hilltop overlooking the Pacific. "The Ranch" is the creation of William Randolph Hearst - a newspaper millionaire who lived during the first part of the 20th century. The "castle" was built with the help of architect Julia Morgan during the 30s, 40s and 50s.

The main house - Casa Grande - is actually more of an estate than a castle and is surrounded by guesthouses, a lavish outdoor swimming pool, lush gardens, tennis courts, swimming hall and a private zoo. Hearst filled the castle with priceless ancient treasures like ceilings from European monasteries, fireplaces from medieval Italy and exotic artifacts. He had money to buy anything. Hearst used to invite famous people to stay as guests at the house and even had a private airstrip at the foot of the hill (at the time that part of California was much more isolated, making the construction of the castle and even more remarkable feat).

One of the guest houses at Hearst Castle

The Neptune outdoor swimming pool at Hearst Castle

After the death of W.R. Hearst the property eventually passed to the State of California and was opened to the public. The tour we did - the Experience Tour - is the recommended tour for first time visitors and costs $24. It gives an overview of the property and goes through the swimming pool; one of the guest houses; the larger living room, the dining hall and the billiard room in the main house; and ends in the swimming hall, which makes you feel you've time travelled to ancient Rome.

The Roman style swimming hall

During our visit there the groundlevel was covered in a thick layer of fog reaching all the way as far as the eye could see over the Pacific. Fortunately Hearst Castle lies very high up (something like 500 m) so it was above the fog. In other words, the sun was shining up there and we had a terrific view of the property and the surrounding landscape. The whole place was unbelievable and a must-visit if you're driving by. With the fog covering the sea, it felt like we were in an airplane or really, really high up, which was kind of cool, but it would also have been nice to see the ocean from the hilltop.

The tour lasted for about 1½ hours, and ended with a 20 min National Geographics documentary movie of Hearst Castle down at the Visitor Centre. It was interesting and informative.

From San Simeon we drove south on Hwy 1 to Santa Barbara pretty much without any breaks. The route isn't as scenic as in Big Sur and there really wasn't anything special to see. One town we drove through - Guadalupe - felt like we had entered Mexico, at least architecturewise. Next to the road a girl was jumping up and down with a sign saying "Honk if you're horny!" She was definitely American. We'll leave it up to the reader to decide wether or not we obeyed her.

We arrived in Santa Barbara quite early in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to walk around after checking in at the Santa Barbara Tourist Hostel (which by the way is in a good location close to the beach, clean enough and a wee bit unecessarily expensive). The main street in Santa Barbara is very pleasant to walk along. There were quite a lot of people and many shops in beautiful Mission-look buildings with red-tile roofs and whitewashed plaster walls. We immediately felt that this town was alive. The beach and wharf buzzed with activity and we stopped among other things to listen to a large group of people improvising and playing on their drums. In the evening we went for another walk downtown and stopped for a beer at the Santa Barbara Microbrewery bar. Believe it or not, but those were the first and only beers we enjoyed during our whole California road trip! It's true, we're not kidding! Quality beers they were as well.

JBB on the pier in Santa Barbara

On the next day - our last day in the US - Sunday 31st August we had an early start again and headed for Camarillo. There we went shopping at the Premium Outlets. After spending over three hours and a lot of Giigan's money we continued to Hwy 1 and followed it all the way to LA past Malibu and Ventura, among others. The beaches along the way were absolutely packed! The amount of people and cars was horrifying. Apparently the sunny weather and the next day Labor Day holiday had chased most of LA's population to the endless stretches of sand. Luckily the traffic in our direction was managable and we made good speed. We even had time to go for a stroll on Venice Beach.

Unlike most people who desparately tried to park their cars as close to the beach as possible, we found a parking spot relatively easy a couple of blocks inland. It suited us perfectly since it meant we got to walk along the canals (it's not called VENICE Beach for nothing) on our way to the beach. In itself the actual beach in Venice Beach was nothing our of the ordinary to our eyes. The beach and pier at Hermosa Beach looked more or less exactly the same.

The canals of Venice Beach are a bit secluded, but we (accidentally) found them

Venice Beach concluded our road trip. From there we drove to the airport, returned the car and played "Heitä Sikaa" and "Bismarck" until the flight to the Cook Islands left at 23:15.

As a conclusion let's just say the road trip was jolly fun, intense and definitely worth doing. It could have lasted longer but at a more sedate pace. At least now there is still so much left to see that a return trip has to be done at some point. If you're driving along Hwy 1 sometime in the future, we'd recommend doing it from the north to the south like we did. Most of the best vistas may be concentrated to the beginning of the journey that way, but stopping at and continuing from the turnouts and resting places is so much easier, not to mention the fact that you don't have to gaze across a lane to see the view. Those 3 meters of asphalt do matter and it's also more thrilling to just have half a meter and a metal rail between yourself and a drop of several hundred meters :D

MORE PICTURES from this part of the road trip are viewable here!!!

*End of part 3 and the road trip story*

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