Leaving lovely Gaete behind, we hit the coast road, which wasn’t as bad as we’d feared. No terrifying tunnels, and being a Sunday, little or no goods traffic. After an hour or so we stopped off for our traditional morning cappuccini and pastries and agreed this wasn’t too bad at all.
And then it all started going pear-shaped. As we turned inland, the road turned into one long drag after another. Not hard – very little by way of elevation – just endlessly, remorselessly, dull. Endless arrow-straight roads through dreary, featureless countryside, with nothing to relieve the tedium, or to take your mind off the grinding monotony. Or the sun, still beating down relentlessly, on the cusp of November.
20-odd k’s short of our destination it got even worse when we found ourselves going through Capua, a grim army town, full of a tangible sense of menace, and tattoo’d, shaven-headed youth.
Eventually, with no little relief, we found our way to Caserta, and a small but comfortable room up on the sixth floor, where we took a shower and a breather before heading out to the local tourist attraction – the Royal Palace.
Which turned out to be HUGE. Just vast. A facade that makes Buckingham Palace look like a shed. Then when you get in (just four euros – yay Italia!) it maintains the same monumental scale.
Described as baroque. They’re not kidding. Every room more rococo than the last. Gold everywhere, vast painted ceilings, staggeringly ornate furniture. Room after room after room of it, till you’re reeling, punch drunk with the remorseless excess of it all. Which I guess was the idea. A stupefying experience. Not a bad one, just so full on.
In mitigation, they’d incorporated pieces of modern art through a number of the sections, which worked very well: some really interesting juxtapositions.
Then out again into the streets absolutely abustle with the evening perambulations of a fine, confident city…with some quirky backstreet art of its own.
