Hearst Castle

We arrived at Hearst Castle just before midday, parked our car and walked up to the Visitors Center. Fortunately we had pre-booked our tour tickets for:

1. The Grand Rooms at 2pm
2. The Upstairs Suites at 3pm

because the tours were sold out for the rest of the day. Given we were unsure of what time we'd arrive, we seriously considered purchasing them at the door.

The movie "Building the Dream" shows every 45 minutes on a large 5 story screen. We had just enough time to buy some lunch and to sit in the sun to enjoy it, before making our way to the theater for the 12:45pm showing. The movie tickets are included in the tour prices, and you really should see it before the tours. It explains the history of the Hearst family, how they made their money through silver mining and later media, their connection with the area, the building of the castle on "The Enchanted Hill", and the parties that later took place there.

We then quickly looked through the exhibit / museum, before boarding our bus to the top of the mountain. The bus ride is 5 miles up a winding road and takes at least 10 minutes, but if you book multiple tours as we did you don't have to come up and down. If you are lucky, you may see some animals from the zoo that was abundant in its hey-day, including elk and zebras.

The Grand Rooms tour is taken as a large group of 52 people, and you follow a carpeted and in many areas roped off route through the rooms. The rooms themselves are huge and impressive, but with dark timbers and artworks they are still somewhat dingy.

The Upstairs Suites tour is much more intimate, with only 14 people. Here you get to see the bedrooms, bathrooms, libraries, and staircases, and lifts.

Together these two tours covered as much as we wanted to see of the Castle, and we'd highly recommend them both.

Between and after the tours we walked around the grounds, looking at the pools, the gardens, and the view to the ocean. You can easily spend 30-45 minutes just looking through the grounds. We particularly liked the Neptune Pool.

By the time we caught the bus back down the mountain, it was nearly 5pm. We had really enjoyed our stop at the Hearst Castle, and we hopped back in the car for the short drive down to San Lois Obispo.