Foto: Carlo Pelagalli, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1752 Charles of Bourbon commissioned Luigi Vanvitelli to build him a palace that could stand comparison with the courts of Europe. What came out is one of the largest palaces in the world: twelve hundred rooms, a facade of 247 metres, and the Grand Staircase, which is worth the ticket by itself.
But the real Reggia starts when you walk out the back. The park runs for three kilometres uphill, along a waterway of fountains and cascades that ends in the group of Diana and Actaeon, at the foot of the great waterfall. The water comes from the mountains through the Carolino Aqueduct, also Vanvitelli’s, and it is a piece of engineering worth as much as the palace.
Two practical warnings: it is three real kilometres, and you have to come back — there are shuttles, and you should use them. And the place is enormous: allow half a day.
It is a UNESCO site. Here in 1945 the German forces in Italy signed their surrender. And films turn up in it now and then: parts of Star Wars and Mission: Impossible.