Today I bring you to visit the Royal Palace of Caserta. It is the largest royal residence in the world and the historical owners were the Bourbons of Naples, apart from a brief parenthesis during which it was inhabited by the Murat.
It was built by Luigi Vanvitelli (and then by his son) from 1752 at the request of Charles of Bourbon and was declared, together with the Vanvitelli aqueduct and the San Leucio complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. With its five floors and four inner courtyards, covers an area of 47,000 m2. The park, with its waterfalls, is undoubtedly very scenic. We left Rome just before 8 am and arrived about 10.45 am in front of the parking lot: at that time it was already full, and in front of the entrance there were two car parkers (“very unofficial”) who gave directions to park along the road,
at the modest price of € 5 per car. (“You would have paid 10 inside the car park” was the addition of one of the two to our “price” request for his “help” in figuring out where we could park the car). I took the tickets at the ticket office, pass the turnstiles at the entrance with the barcode printed on the tickets themselves and we are immediately immersed in a building that immediately reveals its beauty and majesty!
We decide to start our visit from the inside: it is possible to visit only a part of it, however very huge, following a precise path (well marked, I would say). The rooms that you can visit make the most of the beauty and majesty of the building, and I must admit that they are much soberer than I expected. The tour of the rooms has kept us busy for about an hour and a half, and I recommend you go very quietly to enjoy it to the fullest! I saw explanations both in Italian and in English. After a quick lunch break we went to visit the vast garden: do I need to tell you how good it is when I can show you the pictures?!
The walk into the park is undoubtedly long, more than you can imagine and, therefore, I suggest you to plan to dedicate at it most of your visit! We have chosen to visit it on foot and see only a part (we needed to return to Rome and, therefore, the time available to us was becoming scarce). The more we went on walking, the more I remained impressed by the park: the long main avenue, bordered by evergreen and majestic trees, knows how to make visitors feel small.
The park stretches for 3 kilometres, covering a total area of 120 hectares. When you leave the palace to visit the park, you find yourself in front of the broad avenues that cross the park itself and connect the Italian Garden, with the English Garden. We have taken the long street that we found ourselves in front of us, and then we stopped to watch the carps that populate the canal that leads to the fountain of the Delfini: hungry waiting for someone to come and give them something to eat. The fountain is naturally beautiful, like all the park and the palace of course. The basin represents the figure of a sea monster with the head and body of a
dolphin and is the work of Gaetano Salomone. We looked out on the upper floor of the park to watch the other fountains from afar before returning home. I conclude the story with some useful information.
– Ticket: 12 euros for the palace and the park
– Visit the park: several carriages take visitors around, and the price seems to be negotiable with the single coachman. Alternatively, there is a shuttle service that runs between the two ends of the park itself (the palace on one side, the top of the waterfalls on the other) for 2.5 €.
– Bicycles: it is a further alternative to go to the discovery of the park, and it is possible to rent them for € 4 per hour (€ 6 for bicycles with pedal assistance). it seems that those who rent them have a lot of fun;
– Coffee bar and self-service: I found a good idea to put a refreshment point inside the palace. Too bad the cafeteria/self service is not really cheap.
– Duration of the visit: going by step (very) quickly it takes about 4 hours including a quick lunch break. I recommend, however, to provide more time to see it calmly and appreciate it to the fullest! I suggest you spend at least 6 hours for a complete and accurate visit.
– Bathrooms: there are (only) two bathrooms for visitors. One is located inside a courtyard that runs along passing under the portico that leads from the entrance to the gardens, and the other (unique) is located inside the bar.