Yo! Welcome To L.A.!

Good Evening my fellow blog patrons!

We made it to the City Of Angels late this afternoon, and I’m glad we did, as I already love L.A.!

As I mentioned yesterday, we made it to the Hearst Castle this morning. We arrived at the visitor center parking lot at around 10AM, roughly 10 minutes after we left the hotel at San Simeon, 4 miles south of the castle .

Hearst Castle is administered by the State of California, as it is part of the State Parks system.

They offer five different kinds of tours, as thoroughly explained on the castle’s website, each costs $24. We took Tour #1, designed for first timers, a tour that gives visitors the chance to know more about Mr. Hearst, his guests at the property, and some of the features in and around the property.

One reprimand I have to make concerns the fact that visitors are not given the chance to purchase a combination including all of the tours for a more convenient price than what you would pay if you take each tour separately. $24 times five is a lot of money, but maybe with a combination, people would probably be willing to spend some extra dollars, and see more about the place, because trust me, there’s a lot to see.

The castle is beautiful, but in my opinion the inside doesn’t even come close to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. But since this is not a post on the Biltmore Estate, let’s talk a little bit about what I did like about the Hearts Castle.

First of all, I liked the extensive use of Italian marble they made everywhere; the outside swimming pool is surrounded by beautiful Roman and Greek (I’m not an expert, just guessing) statues, there are marble benches everywhere, and even in the inside, the use of marble have been widespread.

I also liked the architectural style of the outside, Mediterranean on most of the property, with a Mediterranean flora as well.

Mr. Hearst adopted different styles for different building, and different rooms, most of what I saw today recalled the 17th and 18th century styles.

The façade of the main building was what really impressed me the most, as it almost look like one of the churches you would probably see in my native island of Sardinia.

The indoor swimming pool at the end of the tour was simply breathtaking; it was so inviting that I almost thought about doing something crazy, like jumping with all my clothes on for example!

And here is another one:

And another one:

We left the Hearst Castle at around 12PM, and drove to the town of Morro Bay, CA, where we met Cari, in this case, MY savior! Yes, I finally got a hair cut this morning, and we have been lucky enough to be sent to her Salon in Morro Bay from my loyal GPS.

I had a nice talk with Cari while she was cutting my hair, and that’s when I found out about her Italian roots, in the city of Bari, Puglia (Apulia).

She gave me a nice hair cut, I asked for something short, and that’s exactly what she did, eventually I regretted asking her to cut it that short, but hey, let’s put it this way, at least I will not have to ask my GPS to find me another good soul to cut my hair again before I get back home safe and sound in Fort Lauderdale!

We left Cari at around 1.30PM after we both got a nice hair cut, and went back on the road, on California 1/101 South, towards the beautiful coastal town of Santa Barbara.

That’s basically where we started hitting traffic (first for an accident) and then for the usual rush hour. Traffic is probably one of the few things that really drive me crazy, today it was absolutely ridiculous; and I thought Miami was bad, I’m so naive!

We arrived in Los Angeles (Hollywood) around 7PM, went Hotel hunting (something that could fit our “100 days on the road” budget) but didn’t find anything that we liked.

We’re now 20 mile east of downtown L.A., in El Monte, CA, and as the word might suggest, it is certainly not a French community! LOL

We had dinner at a Malaysian Restaurant, and although it had raving reviews over the internet, mostly from locals, I don’t feel like I would recommend it to any of my family…

Tomorrow we have several different things to do.

We have to deal with the car, who has to get serviced again (Can you believe we’ve been on the road for 11,000 miles already?), we have to call Windham Resorts to deal with a reservation we made for a hotel package, and at the same time, we have to drive to Palm Springs to visit with our two friends, Frank and Bob, before they leave for Vancouver, BC!

There will be time to visit Los Angeles and do all the touristy things (like the Chinese Theater, Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Beverly Hills, etc.) on our way back from Palm Springs, and then we’re off for a new adventure, down south to San Diego, where we will join Steve and JR, our dear friends from Florida.

From the City Of Angels I guess is all.

Good night guys,
Nico