Last night we ate at Il Cortile, an excellent Italian restaurant in Paso Robles. I had pasta with veal and tiramisu for desert. Fred again ordered a tasty local wine. Our waiter was a young man who had lived all over the west. He was efficient and provided good service.
Today we drive an hour to visit Hearst Castle. The structure took 28 years to build, and the main architect was Julia Morgan, who worked closely with William Randolph Hearst. It was highly unusual to employ a female architect in those days, particularly on a project the scope of Hearst Castle. The place is so big that you can only see part of it on a tour. We’ll be viewing the upstairs rooms. On the grounds zebra and elk roam freely. Part of the Hearst collection of animals, the animals can easily be seen from the Castle parking lot or Highway 1.
Hearst Castle was interesting as were the stories around it. William Randolph Hearst lived on a grand scale. A trip to Europe as a child influenced his vision of the kind of structure he wanted to build and decorate. After it was built he left his wife and lived with movie star Marian Davies, whom he stayed with for thirty years but never married. He entertained lavishly with hordes of Hollywood stars like Clark Gable and Gary Grant descending up his home for days at a time. After his death, none of his family wanted to keep the estate going, so it donated it to the state of California. Now the Castle hosts 500,000 guests a year at the price of $25.00 per person.
After our tour and lunch in Cambria, we stopped at the Epoch Winery outside of Paso Robles. The people working in the tasting room were most friendly and knowledgeable. The man had just moved to the area, quitting his stockbroker job in search of more meaning. The marketing director was an intelligent, articulate young woman, who recently graduated from a program at Harvard University.
Have a good Halloween evening.
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