Around The World In 80 Waves

I spend the night in a shady spot I find in the car park for the Elephant Seal sanctuary near San Simeon. It is truly pitch black and I can see loads of shooting stars in the night sky. My sleep is only accompanied by the crash of the surf on the beach and the calls of these two tonne monsters.

Sleeping in your car is not really allowed everywhere and there can be a fine of $1,000 but the California Highway Patrol drive past several times in the night shining their spotlight on me to let me know that they know I am there, but do not actually bother me. However I don’t hang about in the morning because even if I am looking more and more like Officer Poncherello from CHiPs with every passing day I don’t think it will be enough to get me out of trouble if caught red handed.

A little further south is Hearst Castle which is actually the nickname give to the epic house built by William Randolph Hearst, who actually called it his little ranch. (All things being relative this ranch was only250,000 acres, as opposed to the 1,000,000 acre one he owned in Mexico.) I spend the morning going around the Castle and grounds, which used to include its own zoo and wildlife park.  Even today there is a herd of Zebra mingling in with the cattle that are still managed on the land. (http://www.hearstcastle.org/)

Orson Welles based Citizen Kane’s Xanadu on Hearst Castle, and arguably Kane on Hearst himself because of the power he wielded. Owning a massive media empire he manipulated US politics with dubious and inaccurate stories in his papers in the pursuit of his own ends. (Remind you of anybody?) For instance he is widely believed to be responsible for getting the USA into a war with Spain. He ran for the offices of State Governor and the Mayor of New York and also successfully served as a Member of Congress more than once but never quite achieved the Presidency which he craved.

However getting away from his politics Hearst went on spending sprees across Europe buying little things like St. Donat’s Castle near Llantwit Major back home in Wales, but also the contents of great houses and buildings to have them dismantled piece by piece to then be shipped and reassembled at his holiday home here in California. It is opulence on a scale that premiership footballer’s wives can only dream of.

For a pyromaniac like myself I was particulaly impressed by this 500 year old fireplace which was bigger than the kitchen of my flat in London! The place is overflowing with items like this which he had transported to his palace at the top of the majestic countryside.

The Neptune and Roman pools you see here give you some idea of the luxury in which his regular guests such as Charlie Chaplin, Howard Hughes, Winston Churchill, Harold Lloyd, Harpo Marx and Louis B. Mayer enjoyed themselves. I think I could live in a place like this if pushed.