The Royal Palace and Park at Caserta - part 2

There just don't seem to be enough words to use when looking through the Royal Palace at Caserta. How many times can you think Wow! before you want even better exclamations?

We entered up a grand staircase before going up an even grander staircase, and entered into a huge octagonal vestibule. The size of the interior doors shows how grand this space was.

From there to the Palatine Chapel, for which the King said he would not spare the cost to do glory to God.

The Royal Apartments follow on the left, room after room of amazing light fittings, if nothing else!  First the Antechambers and then the  King's and the Queen's apartments. There are meeting and reception rooms, a library and even a grand bathroom.

This beautiful piece is a babies cradle. I wonder if it was ever used?

As seems to be the trend at present, there were modern art works interspersed with the antique furnishing of the palace. This was the only one I felt inclined to photograph, it was in the library.

On display was an amazingly large nativity scene made with the cork bark structure and figures of straw bodies and terra cotta faces, hands and feet. The dress on the people and the biblical scenes are considered canonically correct. This is a reconstruction of the Royal Nativity Scene for which the King and the Palace at Caserta were well know.

Having seen photos with the parterre gardens at the front of the Palace, I was a little distressed to see the state of the garden as we walked up the path to the palace. You do get used to not seeing the neatly clipped lawns we have in Australia but this just looked lost. 

From one of the very old glass windows upstairs I was relieved to see that the hedges of the parterre are still there. One last look at the parterre as we left still didn't give me confidence that this is how it should look.

After more than two hours in the palace it was back on to the train and another slow trip back to Naples.

The Royal Palace and Park at Caserta - part 1

 The Royal Palace and Park at Caserta was the main residence of the King of Naples. Building began in 1752 to plans drawn by Carlo Vanvitelli. It is the largest former royal residence in the world being 47,000 sq. metres in size, 138,000 sq metres of floor space over five storeys and it has 1200 rooms.

It is late baroque early neo classic in design and was built for King Carlos VII who gave up his throne to become King of Spain. His third son Ferdinand IV became king.

In 1997 it was granted UNESCO World Heritage status not only for its palace but for its park of 120 ha. with formal vistas of fountains, cascades, basins and hydraulic water management. The final point that stood this palace out from others was the large green space in front which had parterre hedges.

This is truly an amazing building, incredibly spacious, luxuriously and artistically decorated and in great condition. After only two rooms Kel said 'I am in absolute awe!'

We chose to do the park first and spent over four hours there. We walked right up the  Via d'Acqua from the palace to the Vasca di Diana e Atteone which is at the foot of the cascade coming down the hill.  This spectacular example of garden design, use of water in gardens and statuary stretches for 3 kilometres.

And so we had walked the three kms and reached the top of the Via  d'Acqua. Spectacular! 

On each side of the Via there is an avenue of holm oaks and a pathway through oak shrubs which we used for shade on part of the way back down as the temperature was nearing 30 degrees. When we reached the floral fountain we turned into the Bosco Vecchio (Old Woods)  and criss crossed through the Renaissance woods, visiting the Castelluccia and the Peschiera.

We came out of the woods close by the rear of the palace where we had commenced our  walk in the Parco Reale. It was well past lunch time and we needed to restore our energy levels before we tackled the Palace.

Look for part 2 - Visiting the Palazza Reale.