Today was the first real touristy thing we did on this trip.  We visited the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.  This is the outdoor pool:

He also had an amazing indoor pool.

Having seen Ludwig’s castles in Bavaria (Day 17 — Part Zwei) it was interesting to compare one of the very few American castles.  Of course it turns out that William Randolph Hearst had European castle envy and imported a huge amount of the materials and fixtures of San Simeon from France, Spain and other parts of the world.

Maybe the most interesting thing, to me at least, was the ketchup on the dinning room table.   The castle was Hearst’s summer home and a working ranch.  So while it was filled with amazing antiques and artifacts from around the world, they ate like it was a summer home with paper napkins, ‘regular’ china and condiments on the table.  The other item that stood out was one bathroom per bed in the house.  Each bedroom had a private bathroom.  The bedrooms with two beds had two bathrooms!

I can now say I’ve been in a bigger house than the Gates shack in our neck of the woods.

We’re in Cambria, CA, a little village on Hwy 1 just south of San Simeon.  We found a great hotel called the El Colibri.  It’s just fantastic, very modern, clean but small and very friendly.  They recommended we eat at Robin’s and we had a great dinner.  They claim to be ‘Hand crafted world food’ and have Indian, Thai, Mexican and American entries.  We both loved our meals.

We went over the 2,000 mile mark today.  The car is filthy!