A real castle in the air - Daphne takes lots of photos!

Daphne is traveling down the California coast on US. Highway 1 towards the Hearst Castle near San Simeon. The view is breathtaking along the twisty ocean road.

Daphne is taking lots of pictures so she can show the mini-peeps at home.

Seals sun themselves on the beaches along the way. They are resting up for a hard, cold winter and they are molting their old winter coats to make way for new ones.

The first site of the Castle is breathtaking. It is set way up on a hill and looks totally out of place in the wild and barren countryside. Zebras run with the cattle in the fields of the estate. They are descendants of the Zebras from Randolph Hearst's private zoo. (Daphne missed that picture - too bad.)

Wikipedia tells us:

"Hearst Castle is a mansion on the Central Coast of California, a National Historic Landmark in California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for William Randolph Hearst—a newspaper magnate from 1919 until 1947. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to the state of California. Since that time it has been maintained as state historic park where the estate and its considerable collection of art and antiques are open for public tours. Despite its location far from any urban center, the site attracts roughly one million visitors per year.

"Hearst formally named the estate "La Cuesta Encantada" ("The Enchanted Hill"), but usually called it "the ranch". The castle and grounds are also sometimes referred to as "San Simeon" without distinguishing between the Hearst property and the Unincorporated area of the same name."


Daphne loves the pool:

And, she wishes that she and Colette and some of the other little peeps would be invited to stay in the magnificent guest house shown here.

The bed is made and ready and the dinner dress is set out in the ensuite bathroom. Bathrooms are a funny place to have closets, don't you think? But, then again, the steam would get the wrinkles out of the clothes.
 

The ceiling of the guest house is beautiful!!

And the view from the patio of the ocean and surrounding pasture lands is incredible!

There are lots of doll-like peeps around, Daphne notices, But they are very large and colorless and they seem very un-bendy.


She takes some pictures anyway. The big doll peeps are very beautiful.

This one is relaxing by the pool.
















And these three seem to have a secret.

This one, who lights the private movie theater, is a bit imposing.

And this poor peep seems to be laboring under a misapprehension of some sort. Daphne is very confused but takes a shot anyway.

The great hall even has these strange unbending peeps embedded in the mantle.


Daphne wishes that Colette were here so she could ask her about it.

The formal dining room is very impressive and very castle-like.

It even has the knights banners. Something about banners reminds Daphne of home. What is it? Oh, yes. The Flagg family and all their relatives.

Daphne  can't wait to show them her pictures.

Back outside again they get another wonderful view of the ocean.

The last stop on the tour is the inside pool with its 18 carrot gold mosaics.

"Wow!' exclaims Daphne. "This is even bigger than Colette's hot tub."





We hope you enjoyed the tour. I wonder what will happen next.

Hugs,

Susan