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Saturday, May 14, 2016

San Simeon and the Hearst Castle

We scheduled a 6:30 evening tour for Friday at the Hearst Castle. The day was free to explore the coastal area around San Simeon. The Brown Butter Cookie Company was our first stop. These interesting cookies have a delicious sweet and salty taste and we enjoyed the offered samples. We did buy a couple bags to take home.

Brown Butter Cookie Company in Cayucos, California


All cookies are hand made using quality ingredients.
We had an interesting lunch on our drive up the coast. Linn's Easy as Pie Café prides themselves on their pies, so we both enjoyed the chicken pot pie and shared a slice of Olallieberry pie for dessert. Olallieberry is a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. Both were very unusual and delicious.

Linn's Easy as Pie Café in Cambria, California
Overlooking the town of Cambria is Nitt Witt Ridge. This historic landmark was hand built over a period of 51 years by Der Tinkerpaw. His name is as nutty as his house. This is sometimes referred to as the poor man's Hearst Castle.

Nitt Witt Ridge in Cambria, California
Point Piedras Blancas, near San Simeon, is a rookerie of Elephant Seals. There are thousands laying along the shore. They return to mate, give birth and molt each year. Looking out at them, it is hard to believe that 100 years ago there were less than 50 Elephant Seals left due to over hunting for their blubber.

Seals and More Seals

Young Males Practicing to Defend Their Harem.

We Smelled Them Before We Saw Them.

Beautiful Cliff North of San Simeon on CA 1
We chose an evening tour so we could watch the sunset from the Castle on the Hill. Also, docents dressed in period evening attire throughout the Hearst Castle. We toured many of the rooms in this 68,000 square foot castle as well as one of the three guest houses and the gardens. Even the bus ride up and back was very pleasant.

The Visitor Center has a museum and theater.
Tours begin here with a 15 minute bus ride to the top.

Neptune Pool

Casa Grande

Beautiful Views from the Gardens and Fountains

W.R.'s Library

Indoor Roman Pool
This is one from our bucket list. We loved the tour. This is truly a splendid place.

2 comments:

Mark & Teri said...

Any place with "Cookie Company" in the name is worth a stop!

Wallace and Carolyn Sternberg said...

We toured Hearst Castle way before we retired!!! Impressive...I remember some of the things...24 k used in the grout of the pool!!!