Los Angeles - Day 14

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

After our late night arrival, we stayed up even longer and watched TV. We got up for breakfast and then went back to the room to lounge around before heading to the game.  Angel Stadium was an easy 20 minute walk from our hotel.  We arrived about an hour early to check out the stadium and eat lunch.  We had wonderful seats on the front row of the second tier with nothing obstructing our view. It was a very entertaining game, but the Angels lost again (we saw them lose the previous week in Seattle.) We stayed for the whole game and walked back to the hotel to relax. I think the trip is finally catching up with us.

Tonight we took an Uber to a nearby restaurant King’s Fish House, which turned out to be surprisingly good.

Tomorrow we head back to Louisville on a 1 pm flight. Plenty of time to get ready and get to the airport what a great trip!!! I would do it all over again!

San Luis Obispo - San Simeon - Los Angeles - Day 13 (continued)

Tuesday, July 30, 2019 (continued)

There were so many great photos today that I had to split the day in thirds to correspond to the app.

To catch the bus back to the visitor center, one is treated to a final treasure — the Indoor Roman Pool.

It consists of more than a million Murano glass tiles, some of which contain a layer of gold leaf inside. 

The main basin of the pool is 81 ft. long and 10 ft. deep. The pictures tell the story.

On the way back on the bus, we could see the remains of the private zoo that once was located on the grounds.

Back at the visitor center, we bought salads to take with us. We made it back to Enterprise in an hour and the staff generously took us to the train station. (Rental was only $35.) No lunch at the station and a block away I found a small cafe named Sally Loo (my dad called me Sallie Lou - my middle birth name being Louise.) Never seen it before. I bought a made to order sandwich and made it back in time for our train.

We boarded at 3:20 and headed for Los Angeles.  We had the comfort seats again and settled in for the 6-hour trip. The scenery along the coast was beautiful and, again, the time flew by. 

We ended up eating our prepared salads for dinner, since we weren’t impressed with the dining car food. We arrived in LA around 7:30 and then waited in the station for another train at 10:30 to take us to Anaheim. We made it to the Embassy Suites at 11:30. What a full day!

San Luis Obispo - San Simeon - Los Angeles - Day 13 (continued)

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

This is a second posting of Day 13 and there will be a third. So much to see!

We entered the house from a side door.  Our tour took us first into the Assembly Room, where guests would gather before dinner. It appeared that Hearst had tried to fill every square inch of space with art including 16th century tapestries, Gothic and Renaissance furniture and Greek pottery. Even the ceilings were ornate. It was hard to take it all in. Our tour did not describe any of the artifacts but left them for our own perusal.

Next we went to the dining room, which could seat 24.  The flags have no special meaning and are just for decoration. 

Beyond that was the “morning room,” which was never used in the morning but usually at 10 pm for socializing after dinner. Although the hey-day of the Castle was in the 20s and prohibition was in effect, drinks were still served — usually gin, scotch and rum. 

The fourth room was the Billiards Room 

and finally the theater. It was common after dinner for guests to watch a movie. In the 1920s, this was still considered a new and popular entertainment.

I thought the holes cut into the fabric in the back for lights and projector were amusing.

Our tour ended there and we were free to wander the grounds indefinitely. We walked to the other side of the main building,

along the Esplanade, which is highlighted with palm and citrus trees, boxwood hedges and Coast Live Oaks, which are native to the area.  

We saw the 3 cottages built nearby, which are equally elaborate, to house guests.  

The views everywhere were spectacular.

To catch the bus back to the visitor center, one is treated to a final treasure and I have to put it and the rest of the day in a third posting.

San Luis Obispo - San Simeon - Los Angeles - Day 13

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

I woke up in the middle of the night, worried that today might not go as planned. I had scheduled a very tight but wonderful itinerary and everything had to work on schedule. Amazingly, it did.

There is so much to say about today that I have to break it into two parts in order to post.

We caught an Uber at 7:45 to pick up a rental car at 8. They were expecting us and by 8:15 we were back at the Garden Inn having a delicious breakfast. They served us an egg frittata  with strawberry cake. They made sure we knew upon checking in that they are a “meatless” establishment. Since it is a B & B, we sat with others including a criminal defense attorney. (Note: SLO has a huge men’s prison nearby.)

By 9 am we had checked out, bags in car, and headed for Hearst Castle in San Simeon.  The drive was beautiful and not the curvy, hilly road we were anticipating. We arrived early for our timed tickets and they put us on another tour, giving us more time there.  

The Castle is now a California state park, which it has been since 1951, and the state is in charge of the tours.  They are very efficiently run and there are several different ones. Unlike the Biltmore in Asheville, where you can tour most of the house, here you only see part of the house on the introductory “grand rooms” tour, which is $25.  You can pay extra to see the other rooms, but today, this was enough.

The Castle sits on top of a hill with a parking lot and elaborate visitor center below, a short distance from the turn off on Hwy 1.  Tour groups average about 50 people and travel in buses up to the castle. There you are met by a guide who takes you on the tour. Tours depart every 10 minutes.

Our guide was immediately likable and reminded us of Jack Black. I assume the guides are chosen not only for their speaking ability but also for their theatrical skills. 

As the bus traverses the switchback road up the hill, you can see the Castle coming into view. 

Up the hill!

The Castle!

The estate originally included 250,000 acres. The house is 65,000 sq. ft. with 115 rooms, 38 of which are guest rooms. The smallest room is 1,300 sq. ft., the size of many homes. It also includes a library, kitchen, movie theater and living quarters for household staff.

In 1919, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst (1863-1947) hired renown San Francisco architect Julia Morgan to build a hilltop house in the Mediterranean Revival Style on what he called his “ranch at San Simeon.”  It actually was a ranch that was purchased in 1865 by his father, who made his fortune in South Dakota mining. His parents had moved to San Francisco in the early 1860s and William spent many occasions vacationing at the property while growing up.

The view of the coast from the hill is spectacular.

Our tour began with the Neptune Pool, probably the most recognizable image associated with the home.

The pool was constructed between 1924-1936 and is the last of 3 different pools that existed on this site. This pool is 104 ft. long and ranges in depth from 3-10 ft.  For years it leaked hundred of gallons of water.  Then several years ago, at the height of the drought in California, the state finally fixed it.

As we walked toward the main part of the house, known as Casa Grande, we can see it resembles the architecture of Southern Spain, with its bell towers designed like a cathedral in Rhonda, Spain. 

It is made of limestone over board in steel reinforced concrete with twice as much steel as is normally used in construction, thus withstanding many earthquakes. At one time the house had 25,000 antiquities in its collection and only 20 were ever damaged by earthquakes.  When Hearst lived here, he had the largest collection of antiquities in the US.  Many items were sold when he went into debt in the 1940s but he was able to keep his newspaper empire.

We crossed an outdoor veranda with another view and up some stairs to a side entrance to enter the house. 

Our tour continues in the next blog post.

San Francisco to San Luis Obispo - Day 12

Monday, July 29, 2019

This was a really early morning for us. We had an Uber pick us up at 6:15 to take us to the intermodal station to catch a bus at 7:05. It then was a 30-minute ride to the train station for an 8:20 departure. All worked as planned, which was amazing. We settled into our comfy seats for the 7-hour ride to San Luis Obispo.  It sounds like a long time, but the time seemed to fly by.  The scenery was not spectacular — lots of hillsides and farm lands, but relaxing.  

We decided not to eat lunch in the dining car and just snacked on some food we had brought with us.

We arrived in SLO about 3:20 and it was a short ride to the Garden Street Inn, an adorable bed and breakfast that I had booked on-line. Built in 1887 in the Italianate/Queen Anne style, it was originally the single-family home of German/Jewish immigrants. In 1989 it was converted into 9 guest rooms and 4 suites. 

We had the first floor suite, complete with a sitting area and private deck. Too bad we are only here one night. 

While Ed rested, I walked around the little city — which is more like a village. It is obviously very popular on weekends, but was sleepy today. There are lots of high end shops and restaurants, although many are closed on Mondays. I did find a rather large fabric store that was open, but nothing unusual there. I walked passed San Luis Creek that runs through town 

and saw the San Luis Obispo Mission de Tolosa, established in 1772, as one of a chain of five missions established by Father Junipero Serra on the California coast.

Tonight we went to an amazing restaurant — Novo — which has beautiful outdoor seating next to the creek. It was a perfect night with the weather, the ambiance, everything. We had a table for two right by the creek and settled in for the whole evening — with a mezza appetizer, seafood dinner and peach cobbler for dessert. Very romantic.

San Francisco - Day 11

Sunday, July 28, 2019

Ed slept in and I took an early morning walk up Nob Hill to the Fairmont, passing the trolleys which are not too crowded at this hour. 

The Fairmont looked the way it always has, elegant and traditional, whereas the St. Francis has tried to go modern — which has changed the ambiance. 

I then walked through Chinatown.  I have always loved watching the shops in this neighborhood wake up to the residents and tourists. Even on a Sunday, I was not disappointed.

I went by St. Mary’s Church, built in 1854, which was one of the few buildings to survive the 1908 earthquake.

Another beautiful day and I caught some great views.

Then Ed and I split a sandwich at one of the small cafes across the street in Union Square. While walking to the bus stop, we noticed this fountain outside the Grand Hyatt.

It tells the visual story of San Francisco created by world renown SF artist Ruth Asawa. Completed in 1972, it is 14 ft. in diameter and is composed of 14 bronze panels. She enlisted visitors and school children to fashion many of the pieces out of baker’s clay, then glued them to the clay panels, before sending it to the foundry. Reminds me of Louise Nevelson’s work. It was funded by the Hyatt which is why there is an “HH” on it.

We then caught a local bus to meet our group for the North Beach/Little Italy Food Tour by local Tastes of the City. It was a good thing we had a snack, because from 2:00-3:30 we were only given some bites of meat and cheese and 3 pieces of fudge.  We have taken these tours in at least 10 cities and they have all been great. This one should have been but it was not good.  Our guide acted like he was doing us a favor and spent a lot of time taking us to non-food places, like a hat shop, and walking us around Washington Square, which was torn up. He was really boring. We only went to 4 food stops — the usual has always been 6. So here’s the line-up:

Palermo II Delicatessen (Sicilian style) for one plate of cheese and meat to share with 12 people.

Z Cioccolato for 3 pieces of fudge in a bag.

Acquolina for pasta. The cheese sauce was unique because the proprietor poured hot vodka into a round of cheese and then scraped the cheese into a liquid. He then added the pasta into the round to complete the dish.

Mona Lisa Restaurant for pizza and half a cannoli.

By now it was 5 pm so we headed back to the hotel for a respite. We went up to a higher floor to catch a view. 

By dinner time, we weren’t really that hungry after all that pasta and pizza, so we had wonderful salads at a little place down the street called Honey Honey Cafe. Had to get to bed early because we have a very early morning.