Big Sur hotels collection

Monterey was the capital of Spanish California, and what lay beyond it received only a collective name: el país grande del sur, the big country to the south, vast and impenetrable. The Santa Lucia Range drops straight into the Pacific there, and the road could only get through by leaping the ravines on concrete arches, as at Bixby Creek. In the canyons, the redwoods hold on to the fog; some were once felled to fire the kilns at Limekiln, where limestone was burnt into lime. At Pfeiffer Beach, rain washes a manganese-laden garnet down from the hills, streaking the sand with purple.