We rolled out of bed at the World’s Greatest $79 Motel and drove up to the assembly point for Hearst Castle. I last saw the castle perhaps 45 years ago, with my family, and even as a kid I was impressed. I’ve always wanted to go back.

Now, as we rode in the creaky buses that take tourists up the hill to, perhaps, the most famous home in the country west of the White House … I was thinking of the economics behind the building, and shaking my head.

William Randolph Hearst was able to build this ridiculously ostentatious place … with profits from newspapers?

Wow. That must have been quite some time ago. Print journalism in the U.S. has seemed to be a money-losing prospect for a decade now.

Profits from the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Journal allowed Hearst to buy mountains of art from Europe and pack them up and send them to San Simeon?

(OK, actually read the wiki entry, and it suggests Hearst’s main source of income was the mining interests his father left him. Though I am left with the impression that newspapers provided a nice cash flow, before the Depression.)

The place is impressive. Enormous. Packed with stuff. Over the top but not garish. Can I say that? If we begin with the idea that Hearst wanted a place to display enormous works of art … then he and his architect did pretty well. Those enormous tapestries (and I love tapestries) actually fit in those enormous rooms.

We took the 45-minute “downstairs” tour. It seemed too short. I wanted to know more. I had more questions. Weren’t the tours longer not all that long ago? We began to debate the reasons why the tours are so short. “State cutbacks, fewer docents, more tours.” “So many foreigners in the crowd that someone yakking at them in English makes no sense, and better to turn them loose on the grounds.” Which is what happens after the tour.

I like the vision of the place, I love the views, I wish I could have been invited there by “The Chief” back in the 1920s. (I’d have to be about 100 years old, though, and a lot more rich and famous.)

Our guide was a 60-ish guy who was huffing and puffing after walking up the steps from the bus stop to the front of the house. He was a little crotchety, and very pro-Hearst. (“Citizen Kane is not about William Randolph Hearst!” … “He stopped living with his wife, but he never divorced her and sent her huge amounts of money every week!” … “Marion Davies was an accomplished actress!”)

Oh, and he made one whopper of a mistake. He talked about how the light bulbs inside are a low wattage so that the art is not abused by bright light, and he referred to the “5,000 difference in Kelvin” — when he meant “lumens.” (We had a scientist with us. No, really.) And he also twice disparaged the Winchester Mystery House, for making up stories, which I can relate to, having just been there, but still … Hearst Castle is out of the Mystery House’s league. To even admit the House exists is a bad idea.

After the too-short tour, we walked through the manicured gardens and loitered around the Neptune Pool. We strongly considered spending another $25 a head to take the upstairs tour, but decided to put it off till another day. (Maybe 45 years from now.)

At the bottom of the hill, we saw the 40-minute Hearst movie, “Building the Dream” (in the movie theater) which focused on the castle. It’s totally sympathetic to Hearst, and lauds his vision and energy and appreciation for European art. And it is well done. They spent money on that. Actors, period sets, upswelling musical score … Arguably the best part of the tour, as long as you realize it’s a bit of a propaganda piece.

Hearst Castle. Do it. You really ought to do at least two of the tours, maybe all three of them … but it will cost you $75. But none of them quite offers enough, and the tour groups for the basic, ground-floor event were too big. Too many people. We were filling rooms, and if you’ve been there, you know how many people it takes to fill a room.

Then it was back down the coast … not even Hearst could improve on that.