CALIFORNIA DREAMS

In a long traveling sinuous, mystical revelations, set pieces and idyllic scenes follow, populated by heroes of fortune and enlightened artists. The soundtrack shells in opening the first notes of a pastoral and agricultural symphony before ringing marine turmoil bouncing cliffs to be lost in the cathedrals of redwood forests. Sometimes the glare of the sun is scorching and blinding as the floodlights before fading in a wet with spray mist. The clouds come and go, clutching and tearing peak in peaks, plunging viewers into a thick gray, which can be confusing, with a turn toward the coast of Brittany. But at the end of each daily episode, the sky is revealed and the rays of the setting sun lights radiate the clouds in cinemascope and technicolor. Before this show, Henry Miller perched in Big Sur, the most exciting feature of these shores, exclaimed: "This is the face of the earth as the Creator wanted. "

Many people feel these shores as close to paradise. Beginning with students from the University of Santa Cruz, first cultural south of San Francisco who certainly believe in the Garden of Eden on a campus shared with the deer, deer and raccoons halt. A little further down the coast families of Italian immigrants finally found fortune, making Castroville, the largest field of artichokes in the world. To crown their agricultural success they proclaimed even in 1948, the first "Artichoke Queen" future goddess of the screen, Marilyn Monroe. 

Further south, sardines canned in Monterey on "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck made ​​a happy author who lived nearby warehouses canneries providing the atmosphere and the smell of a successful novel "The Street sardines. "Stores where crowded now-as in a box évidemment- families spree stuffing hot dogs and ice cream. Neighbors are the most exclusive Pebble Beach and its "17 miles drive" a private toll road that runs through exorbitant superb golf, indented by the waves, an impressive concentration of millionaire golfers share with strips of shiny seals. It is a solitary cypress hung on a windswept and tides which is misleading teaches rock. 

Through Carmel, Clint Eastwood, the former mayor of this charming seaside resort, made ​​up like a starlet's amazing role in a hotel. He had the good inspiration to acquire a vast salt marsh where photogenic sheep graze, to preserve and animate the sight of his Mission Ranch. A hotel like a panoramic setting, made ​​of white flags and flowers, open bay and nature reserve at Point Lobos, nebulous cap lying on the horizon. 

Big Sur is the absolute star of the road scenario with his fiery lover Henry Miller panicked their common fans running naked around his hut, the full moon. This steep refuge for writers and poets, sages or lit, Jack London to Jack Kerouac, has always been welcoming to nomadic ecstasy, beatniks "on the road" to the colorful hippies attracted by its magical vibrations. He became and remains their appointment cosmic between land and sea where the ghosts of loggers, the first to slash its redwood forests and oak, floating with them clearings in coves. The Coast Guard monitor access to such waves husbands jealous because they know that it is better to caress the eyes of the most beautiful beaches tempting waters of Pfeiffer Beach, licking an iridescent sand mineral nuggets that of there attempting melee. As for the real lovers, following the good example Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth 's, they just crack the boards huts the "Deetjen's Inn" that "Granpa Helmuth Deetjen," Norwegian fugitive, built over the years becoming with his "Granma Helen "hospital geniuses of the place. The smoke of their Nordic fireplaces, welcome to pop in this climate variations, and other more trippy, yet rise to the terraces, halfway from the sky and the tops of trees, "Nepenthe," a facility that satisfies and quenches celestial wanderers and tourists frequent for 63 years. 

South of the "Ventana Wilderness" two students Michael Murphy and Dick Price, ranging from Western psychology and Eastern mysticism, settled in 1962 on the land of the lost tribe of Indians Esselen a sanctuary for the body, the soul and nature. Of the 120 acres of Esalen Institute where their sources of hot water gurgle, we continue to resist by all dogmas develop their creative potential, organic garden in tantric yoga, although hippies dormitories were replaced with some pretty homes where the followers of the crop against 60's have turned into sores new age but wealthy. Night owls and mowed visitors can soak in their fabulous spa hung just above the ocean, between 1 am and 3 am, for a handful of dollars. 

Mirage down the road, "Cuesta Encatada" Enchanted Hill newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst is crowned by an extravagant castle, he called modest, his ranch in San Simeon. It began with architect Julia Morgan, nearly thirty years to build the 157-room four houses, sort of surreal collage of Roman columns, Flemish tapestries, medieval gates, Egyptian statues, ceilings and ceramic Persian Renaissance . A gorgeous indoor pool "Roman", inspired by a mausoleum in Ravenna mosaics, saves the entire absolute kitsch. Famous Hollywood stars were there surrounded by frolicking naked statues and dance all night with her ​​blonde mistress Marion Davies. Now is the Versailles of California that we visit firmly disciplined by female guards who tell the story in a magazine as troops people.Et this is where the most exciting ending sequence on Highway 1 the Pacific coast before the episodes of the follies of Santa Barbara and Malibu, but this is another story ...