When in San Jose, a friend suggested to visit Winchster House. Interestingly there was only one person to suggest me to visit this place. Many of the other folks find this place expensive and not worth. This was the month of feb and almost 400 of us from India were visiting San Jose for a technology summit. During one of the days, we had 2-3 hrs in evening and we took bus from San Jose to reach this place.
And the interesting story starts with first event, when we got down at wrong place which was 2 miles aways from Winchester House. We were 3 of us, who decided to walk and reach the place. I could sense that none of us was that excited about the mystery house. So we planned to walk around and experience the neighbourhood. That was certainly richer experience. There can be nothing better than walking when it comes to exploring new place, and especially new country. This was my second visit to California, but hadn't really explored the residential areas.
We took GPS help to find shortest walking path to reach Winchester house. We were super impressed with the cleanness and the way these houses were maintained. It looked like a huge mall, where everything is placed appropriately and no chaos.
We didn't see even a single person around these houses, which is very different sight for an Indian :)
All these houses had very well maintained lawns and fruit trees. Some of them were laden with fruits and flowers. California weather is best for walking and running. We thoroughly enjoyed this walk.
After a while we hit a bigger road which had series of restaurants on one side and business hubs on other side.
Finally we saw this board which states that we have reached our destination. It was time to take a stop, have something to eat and plan to get inside. But before grabbing something, we thought of checking the ticket counter and get appropriate details.
We were happy to see no rush around the entry gate. Which is not so common around various places in San Francisco.
When we reached Winchester House, it was closed. The last batch had entered 15 minutes back. If we had taken the bus to reach the place, it would have been possible to see Winchester house from inside. I don't think any of us regretted the decision of walking, so it was fun and we saved some money as well :). Entry ticket was actually quite expensive.
Now we just roamed around the place, clicked some photographs and moved to an electronic store. One of my friends wanted to buy the new iPhone.
Here is how Winchester House looks from outside.
Parking area just outside the Winchester House.
Learning for the day was - If you plan to visit a place which is not very exciting and you are not sure how will be the experience, don't spend much time in planning and enjoy the moments & experiences. You may end up saving the money and will have good time with friends :). Be open to new experiences and adventure. And prefer walk over transportations for shorter distances.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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