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| - If you've ever wondered "Hey, what's that castle looking thing on top of that hill in the middle of nowhere" while driving down the I-10, turns out it's actually a castle! This white castle (Sans sliders, Harold or Kumar) was built by an Italian sheet metal mogul back in the early 20th century, then sold to the Tovrea family when the Great Depression hit.
The tour was informative and interesting. There's a tram that will take you to the castle and you'll get to see a lot of the native desert life surrounding the area. We saw lots of cacti, including some cholla, and a hippity hoppity little Cottontail bunny roaming around (Probably looking for Peter Rabbit, Flopsy and Mopsy). The tour then continues to the ground floor, then to the basement.
The architecture here is really unique and I loved the art deco feel to the decor. Apparently this castle was intended to be a hotel by the original owner but the Tovrea family decided to make it their own private residence. There's a video on the tour that shows the remodeling process and it gives you a lot of respect for the contractors that put so much love and care into bringing back the Tovrea castle to its former glory.
I booked the "Twilight tour" which is an evening tour of the castle (With no whiny sparkly vampires though, thank goodness). The temperature was still warm-ish outside and slightly warm on the ground level of the castle but the basement was nice and cool.
It was overall a pretty short tour, I'd say with the tram rides and the tour itself we spent about 45 minutes on our actual excursion. I enjoyed hearing about the history and looking at the interior of the castle, but for me the tour felt a bit short. Maybe one more additional element would make it worth it.
There's a small gift shop at the visitor's center which has locally made jewelry and art, Rango honey, postcards, and clothing. Need a copper bunny bird feeder for the fancy outdoor birds in your life? Done.
The one thing that is frustrating about this experience is that it is very hard to actually book tickets for this tour! I had tried for a few years to actually book but there is very limited admission and you have to keep in mind the exact time tours will be released online because they sell out very fast. I booked shortly after the evening summer tours went on sale back in October for the June tour and I'm pretty sure they were sold out within a few days, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually sold out in a few hours! These tours are a hot commodity!
Details:
- Open to the public since 2012
- General admission $20 per person
- Tours held Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
- Next tickets will be released on July 1 for tours in Jan-May 2019
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