Naples; Saturday, 22 February, 2020

I had a bit of a lie-in and a late breakfast as I was planning on heading out of town for the day to look round the enormous palace constructed by the Kings of Naples in the 18th Century as their main palace, but the first direct train of the day from the station closest to the hotel wasn’t due to leave until just after 11:30 so I could have a relaxed start.

With a big breakfast inside me I headed over to the station, purchased my ticket and caught the train out north to the town of Caserta. On arrival I headed out of the station and, immediately opposite, was greeted by the site of one of the largest baroque palaces on the face of the planet.

I headed into the palace and purchased my ticket for both the palace and the grounds. First stop was to do the tour of the Royal apartments. These occupy the main floor of this gigantic palace and, given the size of the building, are opulent with quarries worth of marble and more gold leaf than I think I’ve ever seen before. You follow a set route round the apartments so that you get to see most of the rooms on the floor – a couple more than once as you pass through them to get to other parts of the tour.

By the time I completed the tour it was rapidly approaching 2pm so I quickly headed over to the restaurant to have a very pleasant, and surprisingly cheap, pasta lunch before going on to tackle the gardens.

For such a massive palace there are of course massive grounds – although the gardens rapidly taper to a thin stretch of land that includes a series of cascades and fountains which stretch for nearly 2 miles up the side of the hill. Thankfully, the palace offers a shuttle bus service that runs from the back entrance of the place right up to the bottom of the main cascade at the top end of the gardens. In theory the €2,50 is for a round trip but I suspect many, like me, just use it the one way to get up to the top and then walk back.

At the top of the Royal Park is a large English Garden, but that closes surprisingly early, with last admittance being at 14:30, and when I arrived at 14:31 the lady on the gate was already turning people away. I was able to get a couple of photos from the gate, before I headed back to the water features and started my long walk back down the gardens to the palace.

Despite it only being 2 miles, it still took me nearly 90 minutes to complete the walk, though that may have not been helped by the number of times I stopped along the way to take photos at the various fountains and cascades.

By the time I made it back to the palace it was close to it’s closing time and the last shuttle bus of the day was heading off back up to the top cascade to collect it’s last passengers. I wandered back through the various courtyards of the palace complex and across the main front grounds to the station.

I made it back to the station with about 20 minutes to spare before my train was due to leave, but thankfully it was already sat in the station as it started there so I was able to go and collapse into the seat for my journey back into Naples.

Once back in the city I again quickly grabbed some local pizza before heading back to the hotel to apply a good dose of Volatrol to my aching knees and, after a nightcap, to get some well deserved rest.