Blauert on Outdoors: Hearst Castle now offers special holiday twilight tours

Hearst Castle is one of California’s greatest landmarks. It’s a testament to what the imagination can do when it is virtually unconstrained by financial limits.

Starting from original plans for a modest getaway, William Randolph Hearst eventually commissioned architect Julia Morgan to create a palace that crowns the top of the hill he called “La Cuesta Encantada” (The Enchanted Hill). Her beautiful buildings can be seen from miles around.

Most visitors see the castle in daylight and in the sunny warm weather for which the Central Coast is known. Occasionally, visitors get to see it in other circumstances. During one visit in the winter of 2010-11, we saw it during a downpour. Wind was dramatically bending the palm trees in every possible direction. It was strikingly different but equally beautiful.

One of the most interesting ways to see the castle is at night. From October through December and March through May, special evening tours are offered. From Dec. 19 to Jan. 2, they become special holiday twilight tours.

The buildings are decorated for Christmas, as they might have been in the 1930s when Hearst and his high-society guests spent extended weekends there. It’s a fun way to see the property. During these tours and the regular evening tours, the rooms are populated by historical re-enactors in period costume. They help bring the past to life.

Four hours from Merced, an evening visit would require an extremely long late-night drive to get home. Fortunately, there are plenty of motel rooms in nearby San Simeon and Cambria. There are plenty of other things to do in the area, so it’s worth making the trip a two- or three-day weekend. Later this month, I’ll feature other things to do in the area.

Because all tours are popular – daytime and evening – it’s best to make reservations. For tour and reservation information, go to http://hearstcastle.org/ or call 1-800-444-4445. Reservations are available for this season’s evening and holiday tours.

The holiday twilight tour is 75 minutes. The standard evening tour is 100 minutes. Daytime tours have been extended from 60 to 80 minutes.

If you attend a holiday twilight or evening tour, you’ll get to see some of the most impressive features of the property: the Casa del Mar guest house, the grand social rooms on the ground floor of the Casa Grande, and the surrounding grounds. Two Decembers ago, my family met in Cambria and one of the highlights of our Christmas-season get-together was an evening tour of the castle.

During the tour, we got to take a family photo in the Assembly Room. Although the lights are kept relatively low and flash photography is prohibited to protect the historic art and décor of the home, we got pretty good results with my Canon DSLR. You can get even better results with the “green screen” photo taken of each group before the tour begins. The background for the nighttime tours also happens to be the Assembly Room with a giant Christmas tree. Yes, it’s a fake photo, and yes, it does cost some money, but it was worth it for us to have a quality photo that recreated something we actually saw and captured with my camera (though with poorer results).

There are three daytime tours, each focused around a part of the property: the grand rooms tour, the upstairs suites tour and the cottages and kitchens tour. The evening and holiday twilight tours blend parts of each, hitting many of the highlights. All daytime tours are $25/adults and $12/children. Evening tours are $36/adults and $18/children. The holiday twilight tour is $30/adults and $15/children.

Overall, the evening tour is my favorite because it covers the greatest extent of the buildings, but the holiday twilight tour is special because of the decorations and atmosphere. Both are very enjoyable options.

All tours start at the visitor center located adjacent to Highway 1, just north of San Simeon. Visitors ride a shuttle up to the castle, where the tour begins. All tours include about three-quarters of a mile of walking and going up and down several stairs. Wheelchair-accessible versions of each tour are offered.

Hearst Castle blends Morgan’s remarkable architecture and Hearst’s outstanding collection of European art and architectural elements – an icon that anyone interested in California history, art, holiday adventures or simply exploring – should see in their lifetime.

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Blauert on Outdoors: Hearst Castle now offers special holiday twilight tours."