Caserta Curiosities

Driving to the Royal Palace, Caserta featured the worst

traffic jam we have yet seen, anywhere in the world--again,

no accident, no construction, just the simple matter of getting

Italians to merge two lanes into one and allow entry from a

side street

In the Royal Palace, a delicate reminder from

The very tactful School of Public Administration

Marble everywhere...marble veneer, that is

Kings of Naples..room for six more, too

One of the kings was an avid modeler--here, a model of

flying sailing ships



Touchdown!



Bird-cage clock

Baroque trash-can; seriously

And: the very best nativity scene we have seen yet,

anywhere

Closer up detail

Caserta Gardens

The great palace building and original furnishings at Caserta should rank among the top few of such sights in Europe. For us, however, the gardens, and especially the English Garden--a multi-acre park really--have to rank among the very best things we have seen.

The garden runs a mile or more, up a man-made series of

cascades, then a man-made water-fall, to the top of the

mountain; the English Garden is on the right 

From the pond at the foot of the water-fall, looking back to

the palace

Including today's wedding pix pix

The pond and waterfall and cascade above

Pond sculpture; sculpture everywhere

Some of the quarter mile of lower cascades

In the English Garden, beautiful old pines

everywhere

And Cedars of Lebanon

And trees weird-worthy of New Zealand

Rock gardens, leading to a beautiful pond and

A folly/re-creation of Pompei--after all, these

were the royalty mining Pompei for its

treasures

Everything in bloom

Closer up

The grounds, a carpet of wild-flowers



Vicki assembling a bouqet



You can never have enough Follies at your Royal Palace;

this one a temple on an island in a pond

But it's time to head back to the palace; we're seriously

considering a trip back to Caserta, from Rome, to see the

gardens again



Caserta

After many pleasant days at Camping Spartacus in Pompei, we finally broke camp and headed north, through Naples, and on to Caserta and its Royal Palace.

We've seen many royal palaces, but Caserta was among the

very best

Stark from the outside, but glorious and authentic within



Starting with the grand staircase, all pink marble, domes and

other features of which no lens can capture

Another double-barrel shotgun house, but

even larger and grander than Capodimonte

In the royal nursery

Ditto

King's bedroom

As it looked in the good old days

Queen's bath

Throne room

Not a lot of great art here--mostly original furnishings of

interest--but who can resist the flamenco cherub band?

Nice in-laid marble table

Shotgun view of second floor

Corner of library, with interesting display case

Ravello and Klingsor's Garden

After lunch we took the short bus ride up to Ravello, which is a bit further down the coast but much higher up than Positano and Amalfi. Michelin gives Ravello three stars, and there is a Wagnerian interest as well.

In Ravello and the Villa Rufolo, 1270, mentioned by Boccacio, among others...

When Wagner visited Ravello in 1880, he was so taken with 
the architecture and garden at the Villa Rufolo that he based

the stage design of the 2nd act of Parsifal--Klingsor's 
Enchanted Garden--on it

Entry to the Villa

Interior at the Villa; Wagner had never seen Moorish architecture before--I 
think--and since the evil magician/ arch-villain  Klingsor--who had taken the 
Grail from the Knights of the Grail-- had to be Moorish, Villa Rufolo suited

well

Ditto

"Mit diesem Zeichen, bann ich deinen Zauber!"



Well, it is a gorgeous setting, cliff-side, a thousand feet up
from the sea

More of the gardens and view



Looking south, not as dramatic a view as that north of Amalfi

But the gardens are pretty nice

Someone really likes pansies

Water feature

More interior

13th century outdoor BBQ

With a view



I don't think Ravello merits 3 stars, or even 1,

but I did come away with some decent wine