While we were visiting my dad in Italy, his family suggested that we all go to the
Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta), outside of Naples. Most non-Italians, including us, don't know anything about the Palace (although it is listed in Let's Go!, and I assume Lonely Planet), even though it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We decided it would be a good start of our tourist adventures, since it wasn't too far from Pratola.
Before we get to the Palace, a brief history of Southern Italy: pretty much the entire area of the Italian 'boot' south of Rome, now known as the
Mezzogiorno, was once held under a monarchy known as the
Kingdom of Naples (also known as the
Kingdom of Two Sicilies); this area was under pretty constant threat and often changed hands between the French, Spanish, and Moors. In the mid 1700's, the Spanish won the area from the Holy Roman Empire (which I'm told is different than the Roman Catholic Church based in Rome (and for a while Avignon in France)). Somehow Napoleon ended up with Naples, was overthrown by a peasant revolution, and eventually the region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy (which eventually became a fascist state, then a Republic) in the
Risorgimento by
Garibaldi and
Victor Emmanuel II; the additions of these regions allowed them to perfectly complete the boot shape.
Now that brief summary is, at best, a jumbled misrepresentation of the history of the Mezzogiorno. The important thing to know is that the region was once ruled by the
House of Bourbon (a French-Spanish family) and that in 1752 the family decided to build a summer palace, supposedly based on the French
Palace at Versailles, outside of Naples.
[Quick tangent: because the south was ruled by this Spanish speaking family, we were told by several Italians, mostly from the north, that the southern Italian dialects have strong Spanish characteristics. While we have no idea if is true, the fact that Kimberly was a language champion while we were in the south, having only studied Spanish in her past, had us supporting this theory.]
So after getting lost in Caserta and driving past, under, and around the Palace 2 or 3 times ('Look kids, Parliament, Big Ben'), we finally found it, a huge Baroque looking building. We decided to walk through the gardens first, which required that we ride a bus 3 km to the back of the grounds. As you may remember,
that was an adventure!
Once we entered the gardens, we found ourselves in a serene, lush environment. Like most old gardens in Europe, they prided themselves on the diversity of the fauna, including plants received as gifts from all over the world, including Asia and the Americas. My favorites were the Redwood and Douglas Fir, from the exotic region known as the 'West of America.'
Kimberly and Sissy with a statue of Venus.
Interspersed throughout the landscape were weathered statues, benches, rivers, ponds, and ruins. We marveled at the old roman ruins found throughout the garden, thinking they must have moved them from some other place, maybe Pompeii. It turns out that all these structures were built in the 1700's and made to resemble ancient ruins.
Faux Roman Ruins
One of these 'ruins' was a reproduction of a Greek/Roman Temple, located in a forest in a far corner of the gardens. There was no one else there; it looked like no one even knew about it, even though it was in our guide. The time we spent at this temple was one of the few times we had a quiet moment in our entire trip.
Peace and quiet at the Temple in the Woods
After spending a good couple of hours wandering in the gardens, we decided to get back to the Palace, eat some lunch and do some exploring. After our experience with the bus, we decided it would be a good idea to walk the 3 km downhill back to the palace. The 'causeway,' for lack of a better word, back to the palace was a wide boulevard with a man made river running down the middle. On each side, there were multiple paths, either in a forest, under a row of trees, along the river, or on the bus road.
At the top of the water way, a man-made waterfall.
The man made river was pretty impressive - starting at the top of the hill, a 'natural' water source was created, with the water looking like it was coming out of the ground and running through the rocks. At the bottom of this, there was the first of many fountains, with marble statues of women and water spouting all over. For about 3/4's of the way back to the palace, there was a never ending series of waterfalls and fountains, making the stroll pleasant, despite the heat and humidity.
Angry dolphins spouting waterIn various places along the walk, there were also rows upon rows of marble statues; it's like Italy had a surplus of marble and decided to just put statues everywhere. It was here that we first noticed the vandalism (there's a good picture of this in the photo set, but you might not want to let your kids see it). A recurring theme throughout Italy, and really a lot of southern Europe, is the rampant vandalism. In the most beautiful museums and churches, on marble statues and fountains, there is almost always vandalism. And honestly I don't understand why. Is there too much beautiful stuff there? Do they not need it all? Here in the states, there's vandalism, but I feel like if you were caught vandalizing Mt Rushmore, you'd be electrocuted. In Italy, almost everything is marked. And the only place that seemed to be trying to prevent it was the Vatican.
Walking past the vandalized marble statues Along this walk, we also had our first experience with the other Italian obsession: making out in public. Amongst the trees and benches along the side of the road, there were quite a few couples making out, which wasn't so bad. Then, as we approached the Palace, there was a couple standing in the middle of the road: he had his hands WAY up her shirt and they were going at it hot and heavy. They didn't seem to care that the 4 of us walked by within 2 feet of them. This was not the last instance of advanced PDA that we saw in our Italian travels. My dad joked that we should have thrown water on them; looking back on it, I don't think it would have helped.
When we finally reached the Palace, we had a nice lunch at the cafeteria, where the pressed sandwiches were better than most American restaurant meals (I'm looking at you Applebees). We then wandered around the massive Palace, of which only about 5% was open to the public.
It was a fairly interesting building, built on a grand scale, especially the entrance staircase. One of the more interesting things we discovered was that the marble floors and walls were not in fact marble, but rather painted tiles and walls. The effect was well done, but we thought it was strange that real marble wasn't used; maybe they ran out of money?
'Oh my, a lion'It also turns out that the Palace has been used in a bunch of movies, including as Queen Amidala's (Natalie Portman) home in the Star Wars prequels, which would be cool, if those movies actually existed.
Reggia di Caserta was a beautiful place, and I highly recommend the gardens; personally, I could have passed on the Palace, but I might be in the minority. And it was a great place to start our tourist adventures as it introduced us to many Italian concepts, like 'queuing up,' vandalism, walking, public making out, and heat and humidty.
All the photos of Reggia di Caserta
are now uploaded, and in slide show format
here.
Nine years ago, the Red Sox made the playoffs for the first time in a long time behind Pedro, John Valentin, Troy O'Leary, and Nomar. They won the first series against the Indians (behind a crazy pitching performance from Pedro) and were facing the Yankees for the American League Pennant.
