The beauty of Big Sur

There are places that feel like the edge of the world. And then there’s Big Sur, a stretch of California coastline so brutally beautiful it makes you question your place in the universe.

We checkout from the cozy town of Carmel early in the morning, leaving nothing but memories (and unfortunately a pair of sunglasses) in the sand. As we drive south along Highway 1, we are headed into Big Sur.

The road is winding along cliffs that flirt shamelessly with the Pacific. The sea crashes against the rocks below like it’s trying to rewrite the coastline. Civilization feels far away. Maybe that’s the point. Forget billboards, fast food joints and cellphone bars. This isn’t Sunset Strip. This is raw unfiltered California, the version that Kerouac tried to drink into submission.

Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur.

Big Sur is not a postcard. There are signs along the road saying “Fine $1000 for littering”, and it’s an embarrassment for humankind that such signs are needed at all.

“Cashmere hills filled with evergreens
Flowin’ from the clouds down to meet the sea
With the granite cliff as a referee
Crimson sunsets and golden dawns
Mother deer with their newborn fawns
Under Big Sur skies and that’s where I belong.”
— The Beach Boys, California Saga (1973)

We stop at Ragged Point and feast on a water melon, soon being ambushed by a bunch of hungry squirrels. The scene quickly turns from Ace Ventura to Alfred Hitchcock, so we hurry away from the loud critters. We arrive in San Simeon at dusk, warming up by a fire at the beach.

One of many stops along Highway One.

Next stop is Hearst Castle, the palatial estate of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst which is situated on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This amount of opulent luxury must have been staggering when it was built about hundred years ago. The complex contains 165 rooms and countless expensive items, including 19th dynasty Egyptian statues in the garden. The outdoor Neptune Pool can be seen in the movie Spartacus (1960), featuring Greek and Roman materials bought at auction in New York during the 1920s.

Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle.

The highway soon leaves the coast, going east towards the area many people recently saw in last year’s movie Sideways. The two main characters stayed at the Windmill Inn in Buellton, but we don’t stop there and make our way to Solvang, the Danish village complete with Danish flags and Smørrebrød.

Danish village Solvang.

After Las Cruces we switch to Route 101 going south through Santa Barbara, where the Depeche Mode reference would be complete if we would find the house of Martin L Gore. The traffic increase to a frenzy as I drive through Malibu. It has finally been time to say goodbye to the scenic landscape of the Big Sur, now reduced to just a memory.

“In the western sky
My kingdom come
So still, so dark all over Europe
And I ride down the Highway 101
By the side of the ocean headed for sunset
For the kingdom come”
— Sisters of Mercy, Black Planet (1985)