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Movie Set Travel: Visit The Real-Life Xanadu

This week the American Film Institute met to adjust its list of the 100 Greatest Movies (originally released in 1998) to allow movies made in the last nine years to be eligible for voting. Too bad contemporary classics like "Bridget Jones' Diary" and "National Treasure" could not fend off "Citizen Kane," which once again took the top spot in the AFI poll. (The four movies since '98 that did make the list? "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," "Saving Private Ryan," "Titanic" and "The Sixth Sense.")

Unfortunately, you can't visit the majestic "pleasure-dome" that news baron Charles Foster Kane sulked and spent his final days in in the movie, because it wasn't a real house at all -- Orson Welles filmed it using miniatures and matte paintings.

But its real-life counterpart, the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, is not only human-size but open for tours 362 days a year. Plus, it's less tourist-trappy than the Winchester Mystery House, whose key mystery may be, "How do they have the cash to print all those brochures?" Mr. Hearst also has a skyscraper in his name, which unfortunately he didn't live long enough to see; unfortunately, the Hearst Tower isn't open for tours, so you can only stand in the lobby or gawk at it from the Empire State Building downtown.

Related Stories:
· Movie Set Travel [Jaunted]
· Hotels in San Simeon [HotelChatter]