Every picture I've ever seen of the Mystery House has it nicely surrounded by farmland. This picture clearly demonstrates how this is not the case: see the movie theater sign on one side, the busy street behind the sign, and the housing on the other side. The House of Winchester is now in a sea of city, looking oddly out of place, and all the more like a tourist trap rather than a historical site.
We weren't really allowed to take pictures of the inside of the house, but I got some neat shots of the outside. It's hard to tell how big the house really is from these, though, because it looks much smaller than one might think. The inside is indeed a labyrinth, but it seemed much more straight forward than they wanted us to believe. They said if you straggled behind on the tour, you would get very lost and wouldn't be able to find your way out. Yet, I noticed a lot of doubling back on the tour, which led me to believe it would be very easy to find your way out as long as you knew what you were looking for. Mrs. Winchester and her guests needed to be able to find thier way around the house after all.
There is in fact a "Door to Nowhere"
Teresa and I couldn't help bending the rules a little...technically this is outside the house
Angela and John being cute in the garden
The statue built to appease the Native American spirits who died from Winchester guns
I would definitely recommend taking both parts of the tour to anyone who wants to go. You only see parts of the house on either tour, but it's only $5 more to see both and as much of the house as they open to the public. We didn't see any ghosts, but apparently others have, plus you can spend as much time wandering through what remains of the estate (outside of the house) as you'd like for free.
You know there's nothing stopping you from adding it to your adventure log as well
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