With Labor Day comes the end of long lines at California’s best attractions. So Tom and I decided to spend a couple of days at Hearst Castle and the area surrounding San Simeon. The Central Coast weather is great in September—clear and temperate, just perfect for touring this incredible museum. We chose the Garden Tour, available between May and October, with a focus on the horticultural aspects of the mountain top complex. You can choose from five tours.
The wide variety of trees, bushes and flowering plants is truly impressive since every single plant needed to be brought in as well as tons of top soil. Fruit trees ring the estate and, notably, they retain their fruit until the fruit drops naturally—one of the rules that Hearst established during construction. The garden tour emphasizes Hearst’s vision of the castle as a museum framed with trees visible from the highway below. He wanted to create a lush garden environment typical of European estates but retain the awareness of the 80,000 acre working ranch that surrounds the castle itself. All food was raised on the ranch including prize-winning grass-fed beef that still graze, free-range today. See www.hearstranch.com for more information and history of the ranch.
Hearst used the castle for entertaining but he kept the guest count to no more than 20 so that he could get to know those he invited. He was particularly concerned that the artwork would survive houseguests. So Hearst restricted the consumption of alcohol to such a point that David Niven once commented that the “wine flowed like glue”. Well, you can’t please all of the people all of the time . . .
The town of Cambria is about 6 miles south of San Simeon and has a number of good restaurants. I was particularly interested in finding one that served Hearst Ranch grass-fed beef. Linn’s Restaurant fit the bill. The entire meal was excellent and memorable because of special house-made items. The Linn Family has been farming successfully in the Cambria area since the 1970s when they built their farming future on the Ollalieberry. As we made our dinner selections, we enjoyed fresh baked bread served with the Linn’s house-made Ollalieberry preserves and sweet butter. Yum! Visit their website (above) for help with directions and reservations.
There are a number of good hotels in San Simeon just a couple of miles south of the Castle’s visitor center. This area of the Central Coast is sparsely populated with no intrusive highway noise so you can leave your window open and let the surf lull you to sleep.
We drove home along Highway 1 with one last notable stop very early in our trip. Just seven miles north of San Simeon is the elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas Beach. Here you see numerous elephant seals on the sand below. These huge, bulbous creatures are fascinating to watch. There are volunteer docents who answer questions and entertain the tourists with stories about these seals. Check out their website (above) for information on the seals’ activities throughout the year. Moving on, we enjoyed the ride north, winding in and out of redwood studded coves with the Pacific crashing on the rocks below. We’re already planning our next trip back to San Simeon.
Comments