Caserta

...CASERTA...

"THE VERSAILLES OF NAPLES"

Known as the 'Versailles of Naples' because of the Royal Palace, built here by Charles III of Bourbon, Caserta (population 66,898) is a town where you could very happily spend an entire day, assuming that you will also visit the beautiful medieval village of Casertavecchia (10 km north-east), with its narrow alleys of polished cobbles and small Romanesque cathedral.

The Palace (open 9 a.m. 1.30 p.m.; closed Mondays) faces the station.
It's an absolutely enormous heap, in the richest palatial style, and has been described as 'the overwhelmingly impressive swan-song of the Italian Baroque'.

Designed by Luigi Vanvitelli, the building is 240 meters long, 41,50 meters high, and is pierced by 243 windows. It is the most sumptuous buildings of itskind in Italy. The State Apartments are chock a-block with Venetian chandeliers, Sévres porcelain, ormolu clocks, richly gilded frescoes,
tapestries, gilded baths with gold taps, alabaster dressing tables and massive canvases.
Of particular interest is the eighteenth-century Court Theater, with its beautiful columns plundered from the Temple of Serapis in Pozzuoli.

The extraordinary Gardens, with their fountains fed by a Vanvitelli-designed aqueduct 40 km away, are of three kinds. There is the Italian garden, with its waterfalls and mythological statues - make sure you see the marble Diana and Acteon (Acteon was turned into a stag by the goddess and torn to pieces by his own hounds). The wood of the ancient Dukes of Caserta formed the feudal park, while the English Garden of Queen Caroline has green-houses, cedars, tulip trees and magnolias.