San Simeon: Hearst Castle

 We just got back from an extended weekend on the California Coast.  Our first stop was San Simeon to tour the amazing Hearst Castle.  Immediately after checking in to our hotel we toured the beach and admired the sunset.

 Will and the girls enjoyed chasing the seagulls away.

 

We took our tour of Hearst Castle the next morning.  We chose to do the "upstairs" tour since Will and I had already seen the "grand room" tour before.  The tour was quite amazing with all the beautiful bedrooms to see.  Each bed had their own private bathroom, even if there were 2 beds in a room.  Hearst especially had a fancy for ceilings and each room had unique historical ceilings that had been imported from all over the world and customized to fit into each room.

Another ceiling

 A library

 This vase is over 2000 years old and is in "almost perfect" condition!

 Here is the ceiling in the library.

This is Hearst's own personal bed.  I guess he only slept 4 hours a night so he didn't use this bed too much.

Here is Hearst's personal office...AMAZING!

 The weather during our tour was picture perfect!  Unfortunately there was a lot of scaffolding surrounding the house since they were making repairs but the grandness was still quite breathtaking.

One of the many coastal views from the castle.

Lounging by the pool

Unfortunately the pool was drained for leakage repairs but it did allowed us to appreciate how huge and deep the pool was.  

This is one of the many "cottages" located around the castle

Kate did a pretty good job taking this picture of Will and me.

 Here is the the indoor pool that contains gold encrusted tiles.

 It is hard to tell in this picture, but the bridge that connects the front pool to the back pool is actually a diving platform!

Our next stop on our coastal weekend was Morro Bay with Will's family.  Hopefully I will have the pictures posted in the next few days!  It was an amazing trip!