Hearst Castle

Today we had a very nice breakfast at the motel restaurant before heading to Hearst Castle for the Tour 1: "Experience Tour" at 10:40am.
Our tour started with a 15 minute bus trip from the Visitor Centre to the Castle. This tour is designed to give you a basic overview of Hearst Castle - the group is quite large, 50 odd people of varying age, nationality and interest – we have dubbed it the “been there done that” tour. After returning to the Visitor Centre at the end of this tour David headed back to the motel to do some work whilst Claire, Detlef and I decided that Tour 2: "Casa Grande Tour" was a must do. Same deal, in the bus, up the hill, to the castle but this time we only had 11 people on the tour which covered many of the upstairs private rooms, libraries and the kitchens. After the second tour we met up with David again to watch a movie called "Hearst Castle - Building the Dream" which was interesting and worthwhile as it put the Hearst story into better perspective.
What can I say about my experience today? Wow - it was amazing! That this work was started in the 1920's when this area was quite remote (this area is still quite remote) just blows your mind when you see it all. In fact to achieve something similar today would still be a marvel.
After checking out the elephant seal colony and the prairie dogs that live in the scrub at the edge of the beach we headed back to the motel. We had an early dinner at the motel restaurant – great food, good service – most pleasant!
Sorry no photos today as Blogger does not want to upload. I will try to edit this later. In the meantime, here is a link to the Hearst Castle site if you are interested: http://www.hearstcastle.com/