All | Aquariums | Arduino | Btrfs | Cars | Cats | Clubbing | Computers | Dining | Diving | Electronics | Exercising | Festivals | Flying | Halloween | Hiking | Linux | Linuxha | Monuments | Museums | Outings | Public | Rc | Sciencemuseums | Solar | Tfsf | Trips



>>> Back to post index <<<

2023/04/15 3rd Visit of Hearst Castle
π 2023-04-15 01:01 in Outings
Looks like I'm set to visit Hearst Castle every 10 years, so it was time for my 3rd visit :) It was a quick 45mn from Paso Robles.

Signing up for tours is tricky, the website was entirely broken and the phone lines didn't work either. It's also unclear how much time you need between tours, because the main issue is that they force you to take the bus up and down for each and every tour, which wastes 40mn and gets very annoying when you do 3 or 4 tours. By the I remembered having done 3 tours last time, and how I regretted it with all the bussing, as well as the 3rd tour being less essential (kitchen and cottages). Honestly CA parks sucks for not offering combined tours that are back to back, but they probably don't do it because of lack of bathrooms and food at the top
I booked the first 3 tours, then remembered, and cancelled the 3rd tour to have moe time left over for the rest of the day in Paso Robles. 3103*

Thankfully I got some nice shots from the air the previous day, which give a good idea of the land:

private runway that people outside the Hearst family, cannot use
private runway that people outside the Hearst family, cannot use

castle in the sky
castle in the sky




view of the unfinished wing that CA Parks is not allowed to finish
view of the unfinished wing that CA Parks is not allowed to finish




seen from the castle, the runway was tempting :)
seen from the castle, the runway was tempting :)

Long story short, Hearst was a rich man with somewhat questionable taste who bought lots of things and tried ot make it all fit in his ever growing ranch house (only later renamed to Castle). It's interesting to see, but a bit weird at the same time too.

Took the 2nd bus up (9:20) for the grand tour and then went to the upstairs tour right afterwards at 10:10. Pictures below as a composite of both tours. If anyone has to pick, the upstairs tour is better than the main tour in my opinion:








actual sphinx from egypt
actual sphinx from egypt



Time to get in:







OMG, ketchup and terrible mustard
OMG, ketchup and terrible mustard




Upstairs has nice rooms of all types:













Nice views outside:


The last bit is of course the indoor swimming pool that is beautiful:





After being done with the Casle, just up the road a bit, there is Elephant Seal Vista Point, missed it last times but not this time:






Nice little half day trip from Paso Robles that gave enough time left to see other things in Paso Robles

See more images for 3rd Visit of Hearst Castle

More pages: December 2023 May 2023 April 2023 December 2022 October 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 February 2022 November 2021 August 2020 December 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 July 2018 January 2018 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 December 2016 November 2016 June 2016 September 2014 April 2014 September 2013 August 2013 June 2013 April 2013 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 November 2011 April 2011 June 2010 April 2010 October 2009

>>> Back to post index <<<

Contact Email