{"id":2771,"date":"2015-10-04T21:47:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T21:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cncadventures.com\/?p=2771"},"modified":"2015-10-14T21:56:14","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T21:56:14","slug":"royal-palace-di-caserta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cncadventures.com\/?p=2771","title":{"rendered":"Royal Palace di Caserta"},"content":{"rendered":"

We get up and enjoy a nice breakfast at the Royal Caserta Hotel. When we planned our trip and got to the end of Sicily, we were going to rent a car in Salerno to visit Calabria. The only problem was that we were leaving Sicily on a Saturday and the rental car place was only one until 1330 and closed on Sunday. This caused me to poke around in the surrounding area to see what we might discover. I came across the Palace of Caserta that is the second largest palace behind Versailles. Versailles apparently has a better publicity department as we had never heard of Caserta and based on reviews neither has most of the English speaking world. This just made me want to check it out. Now we are here to do just that.
\nWe check out of the hotel but leave our packs in their luggage room. This frees us to walk the short distance to the palace unencumbered. We arrive near the front grounds and are surprised that the garden area leading up to the palace is not well taken care of. There are lots of weeds among the manicured gardens. The palace itself is half covered in scaffolding. We are not sure what to expect at this point.<\/p>\n

\"King<\/a>

King of the Beasts<\/p><\/div>\n

We get to the front and there is a huge line of sorts to get in. Carol waits while I go to make sure this is the line to buy tickets. It is in fact so we move along slowly as it seems they let tweet or so people in, then a little wait, then some more. When we finally get to the ticket booth we learn what Carol had suspected. It is the first Sunday of the month and so it is free admission. That is why there are so many Italians here in line. Free tickets in hand, we go to check out the palace.
\nThe palace was the home of the Bourbons who had ties to Napolean, the Spanish royalty, and the Austrian royalty. Charles III had the palace commissioned in the 1700’s. It is 484,376 square feet ( about 11 acres) and only has 1200 rooms. We get to see the Royal Palatine chapel and also see some columns that were damaged during WWII. Some of the rooms have hugh guided bronze chandeliers that let you know how large the rooms are. Almost every room we enter has a beautiful fresco painting on the ceiling.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Throne Room<\/p><\/div>\n

The throne room is the largest in the palace and was only completed in 1845. It is very beautiful although the throne itself is not the most luxurious that we have seen. One small room is dedicated to the sedan chair of Pope Pius IX who was a guest here in 1850. We see the bedroom of Joaquim Murat who was married to Napoleons sister, Caroline Bonaparte. The bedroom of Francis II who was married to a Wittelsbach is also shown. There are rooms dedicated to each of the four seasons that contain beautiful Venetian glass chandeliers. We see the Royal potty and the Royal library with many books on species of animals and plants. The last few rooms are dedicated to paintings of the different royals and even their dogs. Our visit to Austria is tied in here as we learn that Mary Theresa who we learned about in Austria and whose daughter Marie Antoinette was married to King Louis XVI of France for political reasons also had her daughter Mary Caroline married to Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, King of Naples. The visit here turned out to be a good one and there were nice explanations in English in every room. I was not expecting that so it was a pleasant and welcome surprise.
\nWe walk back to the hotel, get our packs and head to the station to buy our tickets to Salerno. It is only an hour ride and the hotel in Salerno is right across from the train station. We are only staying here so we can pick up our car tomorrow at the Hertz place which is also just steps from the hotel. We check in with one of the least friendly guys we have encountered, even though he is very efficient. After settling in the room, we walk to find some place to eat. My research did not show a lot of promise in the area and the one place that had promise is closed today. We walk near the waterfront and find a place where we get a pizza and two small calzones to have for Linner. Then we walk along the water and go back to the hotel for an early night. We hope to catch up on our rest before our driving adventure begins tomorrow.
\nExpenses
\nTrain from Caserta to Salerno 8.4E
\nPizza and Calzone Dinner with a beer 9.5E
\nGelato 6E
\nHotel Plaza 85E
\nWalked 5 Miles<\/p>\n\n\t\t