1 Palazzo Reale (di Caserta) (Just opposite the train station). Closed on Tuesdays, Palace: 08:30-19:30 (year-round), Garden: 08:30-1½ hr before sunset. The most touristically interesting part of the city. €18 including everything, Royal Apartments only €12, Gardens only €9, free with Artecard.
The palace is one of the largest in Europe, comparable to Versailles, mainly due to the garden architecture - in fact, it was built to compete with it. A former royal residence in Caserta, southern Italy, constructed for the Bourbon kings of Naples. It was the largest palace and one of the largest buildings erected in Europe during the 18th century. In 1997, the Palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, described in its nomination as "the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multidirectional space". Even the toilet on the ground floor of the palace might be worth a visit.
The 2 garden is about 3 km long with a few side-branches. A small buffet is available at the north end. There's a (mostly fully occupied) micro-bus service that takes you up and down the garden.
At the north end of gardens, it's possible to enter a separate part - 3 Giardino Inglese. It can be entered with the all-in-one ticket, but it closes 1-2 hr before the rest of the garden. The garden is characterized by the apparent "natural" disorder of plants (many rare), waterways, ponds, "ruins" (resembling Pompeii excavations). Outstanding are the bath of Venus, the Cryptoportico, the ruins of the Doric Temple.
Caserta was used as the location for Queen Amidala's Royal Palace on Naboo in the 1999 film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and again in the 2002 film Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones as Queen Jamilla's palace. The same room was also used in Mission: Impossible III as Vatican City. The square where the Lamborghini is blown up is the square inside the palace. The main staircase is also used in the Angels & Demons television series as the Vatican's staircase. The mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli used the palace as a primary location for the film L'art des castrats that accompanies her album Sacrificium, dedicated to the music written for the castrato singers of the baroque period.
