BrowsingRome Blogging about my experiences and sharing my thoughts about Rome, Italy and beyond
While I know I have already covered a great deal on the Palace of Caserta, it wouldn’t feel complete if I didn’t share some information with you on the Palace itself.
As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I was eager to visit the Park and on the way there, I was stopped in my tracks by the splendor of the stairs. For a second, I was torn between making my way up the stairs to visit the historic apartments or heading directly to the park.
The Stairway of Honor is commanding with two marble lions lined on each side of the half-landing representing reason and force. Once you get to this landing, instead of a single stairway, you find yourself looking at parallel stairways leading to the Chapel and Historic Apartments.
Once we made our way up these flight of stairs, we chose to first visit the Palatina Chapel which was inaugurated during the midnight Christmas mass in 1784.
Palace of Caserta: Highlights
Naturally, it’s impossible to show you all the rooms we saw at the Palace but allow me to share a couple with stood out for me.
There are two ante chambers that you will visit before getting to the Royal Apartments. What stood out for me in these two rooms were the chandeliers. Here’s a short video of the two ante chambers.
The next room that I found extremely impressive and for obvious reasons is the Throne Room which is the biggest of the royal apartments and elaborately decorated.
My favorite rooms were the drawing rooms that are dedicated to the seasons.
Even though the audio guide wasn’t outstanding, it sometimes drew your attention to details you could easily have missed. For example, it had talked about the bird cages which were clocks. It was only after this was mentioned that I took a closer look and I saw there was a clock under the bird cage!
As the holidays are here, I was thrilled to see the Hall of the Nativity Scene! It felt like they were saving the best for last as this was towards the end of the guided tour. I have never seen a nativity scene this complex. Incredible!
The above are just some highlights and you will just have to take a day trip to see the rest for yourself. The Palace of Caserta is seldom mentioned in guidebooks and I hope that with the posts that I have written, you may consider it as a possible day trip from Rome.