Travel Tuesday: Hearst Castle, California

Welcome back to Travel Tuesday! There is no suggested prompt today; simply link up with any travel post you wish! I'll be sharing photos from my recent trip to Hearst Castle, a State Historical Monument on the central coast of California. Hearst Castle was built for newspaper mogul William Hearst in the early to mid-1900s. I had been to the castle once before, in middle school, and gone on the typical "Grand Rooms" tour. This time, we elected to go on a specialized tour to see the private suites in the top floors of the main house, or "Casa Grande."

Of course, the main reason I wanted to do the upstairs room tour is because it included the library. Wowza!






We also toured the guest bedrooms and the private bedrooms of W.R. Hearst and his partner. Several of the guest suites had outfits laid out to illustrate how visitors to Hearst Castle were encouraged to dress. Our tour guide described it as "California casual" — instead of formal evening wear, you only had to wear a bow tie (if you were a man) or a only cocktail dress (if you were a woman).

I loved these lampshades! The tour guide said many of them were land indenture documents.

The center item on this table is a penholder, and the pen is meant to go right in the knight's hand because "the pen is mightier than the sword." Get it??

I was in absolute awe of the gorgeous ceilings throughout the house, like this one.

We also saw W.R. Hearst's study, where he would make last-minute edits to his newspaper(s) before approving them for print across the U.S.

After the tour, we were free to wander about the grounds and walk through the pools before boarding the bus back down to the visitor's center. I fell in love with the cottage doors—they are absolutely exquisite! If I make another trip to Hearst Castle, I would love to take a tour of the cottages.

The road from the visitor's center to the castle was quite windy, and I have to admit: I don't know how comfortable I would have been on it if it were only a bit rainier that day! Fun fact: Alex Trebek voices the audio guide on the tour bus.

Link up with your travel stories and/or tips below! Feel free to grab the button, too.


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P.S. — I've decided to keep my "Ask Me Anything" comments open for one more week, so stop by this post and ask me anything you'd like to see answered on this blog! From travel to books to my bike to my fiance—I'm an open book! :) Comments on the post will close this weekend, and I'll answer the questions in a new post in early April!