THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Hearst Castle, The Interior

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

April 4, 2013, Hearst Castle

Well, we have seen the outside photos, and the gardens and statuary, now a few inside photos.

No flash photos are allowed while you are inside the castle.  I put Sony Too to the test, as it is also somewhat dark in many of the rooms, many of my photos are blurred and dark.  I tried very hard to not capture other guests in my photos and have edited a few where someone just kinda showed up at the last moment.  Time to snap any given photo was of the essence and was fleeting at best.  Tough assignment, for which I barely received a passing grade.

Here are a few of the best photos.  The front "gathering" room, it's cocktail hour.

The ceiling in the front gathering room.  Carved wood.

The dining room, or the Refectory, as William named this room.  Silver, dishes, and regular ole ketchup and mustard jars.  Reported to be original jars.  Don't believe the ketchup is original tho!

The dining room ceiling. The ceiling is carved wood, the detail is amazing.

Ceiling in the billiard room, read about it on the official web site (link broken as of October 2018) it is 15th-century and it is Spanish.

And, yes, there is an elevator:

Morning room.  I found a virtual tour of this room while writing this post (link broken as of October 2018), the colors are beautiful, clearly they had better lighting situations than we did on our tour.  Please be warned this is a large file and takes some time to open up for viewing.

Wall decoration in the home theater:

They showed some home movies of William Hearst and guests.

It was interesting getting a look into William Hearst's home.  It was also over whelming.  It was just so HUGE!

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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Hearst Castle, The Gardens and Statutory

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

April 4, 2013

In a prior post I shared some photos of the exterior buildings of Hearst Castle, lets have a look at the gardens now.  I have posted additional photos of the flora over at Reflection's Flora and Fauna, you will want to visit, you don't want to miss 11 more garden photos.

For the most part, let the photos speak for themselves:

The rose gardens were wonderful.  Roses in California are wonderful, oh, so are the rhododendron and the azalea and oh, all things flora.

The outdoor pool, the Neptune Pool:

You can see the roads coming up and going back down in this shot.  The sea mist was really rolling in this day.

Another view of the roads and the beautiful acres and acres surrounding this home.

Tennis courts:

And, below the tennis courts, same building, the indoor pool, the Roman pool:

There are many web sites (including the official one) that tell about the Hearst Castle, here is one aimed at cycling, with numerous photos from the California State Parks system.  Another site for more information (summary style) is of course, Wikipedia.

Not quite done, I'll show some interior shots soon.




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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Hearst Castle, The Exterior

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

April 4, 2013

Hearst Castle, on the bucket list.  Visits are by reservations for one (or all) of four tours. We did the Grand Rooms tour.  I wish we had the time, energy and $$ to do more, but, alas, one tour took our breath away, and we enjoyed it!

The castle sits high (HIGH!) on a hill (small mountain?).  This photo taken with much zoom from the visitors center.  Sony Too does not have enough ooomphh to get us any closer, and yes, this photo is out of focus.  Did I say the castle sits HIGH on a hill??

They bus you up to the castle.  The roadway is one way in many places, curvy, cut into the hillside in a manner to preserve views and show off the castle from different angles as you climb, climb, climb.  The bus does a great job of getting you up there, but, ohhhh, the urge to drive it yourself!  The bus lets you off at this stair well, rather grand, well, the entire castle is grand, and beautiful!

Front door:

I am sure they told us interesting facts about these cherubs, facts I no longer remember.  No matter, I can still appreciate!

Different views, all awesome, don't you think??

This was around "back".  The gardens back here were wonderful.

This is a "cottage", a separate residence.  For many, this would be a wonderful place to live, large, opulent, WOW!

And, how bout this for a view??  There was a bit of sea mist, but, some how, it is even more enchanting.

I'll share some more photos soon.  It was quite the experience.  A glance into the past, as only the rich can provide.




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