Tours
Royal Palace of Caserta
Vanvitelli’s palace with 1,742 windows, 123 hectares of park and three kilometres of Via d’Acqua up to an 82-metre cascade. Expect a lot of walking.
The Terra di Lavoro plain seen from the heights of Caserta Vecchia, towards evening.
- From Naples
- 45min
- Visit
- half a day
- Pairs with
- Naples old town
Charles of Bourbon laid the first stone on 20 January 1752, to Luigi Vanvitelli’s design. The palace has 1,742 windows. Inside you walk the Royal Apartments, the Royal Staircase with its upper vestibule, the Palatine Chapel, the Court Theatre and the gallery called the Cannocchiale.
Outside, the Royal Park covers 123 hectares and the Via d’Acqua runs three kilometres along the central axis, fountain after fountain, up to the Great Cascade. The whole complex has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, together with the Carolino Aqueduct and the San Leucio Belvedere.
Photo: Vincenzo Ventriglia · CC BY-SA 3.0
What you see
The Great Cascade and the Torrione
The water drops eighty-two metres from the top of Monte Briano, fed by the Carolino Aqueduct, and lands in the Fountain of Diana and Actaeon. Above it stands the Torrione, a grotto pavilion: Vanvitelli had planned a coffee house there that was never built.
The Fountain of Diana and Actaeon
Built between 1786 and 1789 by Pietro Solari, Paolo Persico, Angelo Brunelli and Andrea Violani. It marks the highest point of the park, and it is the basin where the water gathers before feeding the palace, the park and the English Garden.
The English Garden
Twenty-three hectares, wanted by Queen Maria Carolina on William Hamilton’s advice, drawn by Carlo Vanvitelli and planted by John Andrew Graefer: 228 tree species, four historic greenhouses, twenty-four sculptures, the Bath of Venus, the Cryptoporticus and the lake.
The fountains of the Via d’Acqua
Past the Margherita Fountain they come in order: the Dolphin Fountain, the Fountain of Aeolus, the Fountain of Ceres, the Fountain of Venus and Adonis, and finally Diana and Actaeon. Three kilometres of axis, one sheet of water after another.
Getting there with us
- There are two gates: Piazza Carlo di Borbone, where the ticket office is and where visitors with reduced mobility go in — there is a lift reserved for them — and Corso Pietro Giannone 17, which opens straight onto the Royal Park but has no ticket desk. They are two different points in the city: decide which one beforehand and we set you down there.
- There is no parking inside the complex. We set you down at the gate and find somewhere to wait nearby: that part is our problem, not yours.
- The park runs three kilometres and climbs towards the cascade. An electric shuttle follows the central axis, stopping at the Dolphin Fountain and the Fountain of Aeolus, and bikes and golf carts can be hired.
Worth knowing
- Tickets come from the palace’s official site: TicketOne is the only authorised online reseller, and you pick a date and a time. The full ticket covers the Royal Apartments, the Court Theatre, the Royal Park with the Bosco Vecchio and Via d’Acqua, and the English Garden.
- You cannot leave and come back in on the same ticket: once you are out, you are out. The car, though, stays where it is, and we wait as long as you need.
- Three kilometres of park plus the rooms of the palace add up to a lot of walking: comfortable shoes. If walking the whole avenue is not the plan, there is the electric shuttle along the central axis. Bicycles may only enter from Corso Pietro Giannone.
- If you want a guided visit, book it directly with a licensed tourist guide. We take care of the driving.
