Cambria is so charming, you may not even make it to Hearst Castle — and that's OK.
Heading for the Central Coast? With so many hiking, dining and sunset-gazing treasures, you may not even make it to Hearst Castle — and that’s OK
CAMBRIA >> The sprawling, yet charming seaside town of Cambria is best known as base camp for visiting Hearst Castle. And indeed, that world-famous shrine to ostentatiousness is worth a visit. But that’s only one reason to spend time on this stretch of the Central Coast.
For starters, everything’s easy.
There are no traffic jams, just Linn’s olallieberry jams and pies. No lines for restaurants, save for the nightly party waiting to get into The Sea Chest. Even the lodging choices are stress-free, with many rooms running south of $150 a night. And to-do lists are restricted to meandering walks along wildflower-laced bluffs overlooking the rocky shoreline.
With dozens of Paso Robles wineries beckoning from the nearby hills just to the east, it’s also ridiculously easy to spend a languid afternoon exploring tasting rooms, and be back in plenty of time to watch the sun set over the Pacific.
On a recent Sunday, we parked on Cambria’s Main Street and followed the sound of live music into Las Cambritas, a Mexican bar and restaurant where merrymakers were sipping margaritas on the patio and dancing to a band playing Tom Petty covers.
Not quite ready to join a party, we crossed the street to grab a quick Cuban panini and tuna Waldorf salad at Linn’s Easy as Pie Cafe — not to be confused with the nearby Linn’s restaurant and Linn’s gift shop. Over the next few days, we’d make only a small dent in our restaurantsampling foray down Main
Street’s restaurants, but our favorites included Indigo Moon and Robin’s, both of which are great for lunch and even better for date night.
Cambria’s Main Street has an East Village and West Village, separated by a portion in the middle that houses a school, a church, a grocery store and community center. Both have plenty of restaurants, shops and art galleries to explore, so give yourself plenty of time to explore the whole stretch.
A good place to start is the Garden Shed, the first stop in a collection of unusual home and garden stores around a common courtyard.
In addition to more traditional highend decor, there’s an enormous selection of succulents, a small herd of recycled-tin goats and a mosaic tile bench straight out of Antoni Gaudi’s Park Guell in Barcelona.
Over the next few days we’d return to town often, but only when we could pull ourselves away from our coastline explorations.
Our favorite place to walk was the cliffside trail in the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, a former cattle ranch that became public open space in 2000 through a coalition of public and private funding.
A variety of trails zigzag across the 437-acre property. On the stretches closer to the water, you can watch for spouting whales, snowy egrets and soaring hawks from the comfort of one of many artsy driftwood benches. (Since the ranch is situated between two
oceanfront housing developments, you also can gawk at envy-inspiring real estate.)
A less ambitious but also lovely stroll is the 1-mile boardwalk on Moonstone Beach, named for its colorful pebbles and synonymous with the long stretch of small mom-and-pop hotels and motels just across the street from the water.
By late afternoon, the lines start forming at The Sea Chest Oyster Bar and Restaurant, which opens at 5:30 p.m. Locals and tourists arrive armed with bottles of wine and even chairs for the wait.
It’s a tradition — a street party — and what you mostly need to know is that the restaurant only takes cash and you can’t bring in that bottle you brought for “happy hour” without a corkage fee. Also, the fried calamari steak is excellent as either an appetizer or an entree, and portions are huge, so think about sharing. We went on a weeknight, off-season, but the line was already long when we arrived at 5 p.m. We took our place, opened a bottle of white and sipped while chatting with line mates from Sacramento.
By 5:40 we’d made the cut and, after depositing our unfinished chardonnay in the car, got the last two seats in the house at the bar of the exhibition kitchen.
We had to swivel around on our stools to watch the sun sinking so gloriously into the horizon, but that was fine, since we couldn’t take our eyes off the cooks churning out filet after filet of fresh halibut and salmon and the signature oyster dish, Devils on Horseback. Afterward, we opted for just one more stroll on the Moonstone boardwalk to sort out plans for the next day, facing one of those happy vacation dilemmas — too many good choices.