Caserta

Behind the green door where the
branch meets for church!
Ross welcomes us in!

Jim holding a darling little girl named
Samantha at church on Sunday.

Merry Christmas everyone! I am so far behind on my blogging but I am determined to catch up very soon. Last Sunday we had a chance to go to church with the kids. It was our first time visiting their congregation and going to their branch was really delightful.

They go to church in Caserta which is a town north east of their home. It is a medium-sized town and one of my favorites. Heading away from Naples does wonders for a town and it is cleaner and more relaxing and just a fun place to visit. It is not on most tourists "to do" list which makes it an even more authentic and wonderful experience.

One thing I loved about their branch was that the people were so friendly and accommodating to us. There are about 1/2 Italian and 1/2 English speaking people in the branch. They have head phones and that was our first time experiencing that. It was great. One of the elders just did the interpreting when someone was speaking Italian...it was about 1/2 and 1/2 time for each language. Another thing I loved was walking into the church meeting area (which is a floor that is leased in a tall old building) and it was like coming home. Everything was familiar and that felt good after being in a foreign land for a few weeks.

Laura and her friend sang a beautiful Christmas duet which was a treat for us as we had not heard her sing in church in a long time. And Relief Society was amazing and very spiritual with the whole lesson being taught in Italian and a sweet lady sat right behind us and translated the whole thing. We are looking forward to going back this week.

The Kids

Reggia or Palace at Caserta

After Church we were heading to the Palace in Caserta which is called the Reggia. This place is absolutely a must see as far as I am concerned. This palace was built in the 1700s by the King of Naples and was designed to be like the Palace of Versailles but just a little bigger! This Palace took 10 years to build and was only used formally by the king for one year before he replaced his dead brother as the King of Spain.

Last time we came I fell in love with it and decided it was worth climbing the immense staircase again. Here is the first flight. At a right angle to it is the second set of stairs exactly like it. The entire stariway, both sections was sculpted out of one piece of marble.

Italy the land of a million stairs!
When you get to the top you are half way into the Palace Rotunda

In this beautiful building the acoustics are amazing and when we got to the Rotunda there was no one there. Our family gathered around and sang some Christmas songs and we sounded awesome. I am saying that only because the building made us sound that way, if you know what I mean. Laura and I sang a couple of duets..I have never had so much fun singing before. Our voices were just ringing through the whole place very loudly. We sang Away In a Manger and Hark the Herald Angels Sing at the top of our lungs. My favorite touring moment so far.

Some passersby stopped to listen. I was totally embarrassed but hid behind our daughter's skirts who is the real singer. It was so neat for me as I have always wanted to be able to sing but never had the talent or the nerve. We also had lunch in this neat part of the palace as Laura brought us a little simple picnic.

Rossie having his sandwich.

This Palace has the most gorgeous ceilings. This one is still my favorite. The first time I saw it it literally took my breath away. I love this! This one got to me more than the Sistine Chapel because it was the first frescoed ceiling I had ever seen with my own eyes. The pictures do not begin to tell the tale. The other part of it that I adored was I could view it in solitude in this room with just our family. I am not a big crowd person and I feel that being jammed in with lots of others is very distracting.

This is what I climbed the stairs for ~ I have never seen
a more beautiful fresco than this one!

Some ball gowns of the time
on display in the huge ball room!


I was flat out coveting this!

So, OK, there are 1200 rooms in the palace and I could go on and on but instead I will take you outside to the beautiful gardens to see the waterfall.




This is a view of the Reggia from the waterfall. While we toured the palace and rode the shuttle to the waterfall, Robert and the boys walked up to the waterfall from the Reggia, we got there first, it is a long way. During WWII they use to land small planes in the water here. The Nazis took over the palace for a time during the war. Fortunately, it has been returned to the Italians, its rightful occupants.

Caserta Presepe

One of my favorite views.
Check out the skin and bones dog!

Presepe means Nativity in Italian. The Caserta Reggia had one of the most beautiful we saw. This is a huge presentation of the Nativity featuring people from all walks of life around the main event, Christ's birth. In Italy you can buy these sculpted figurines all around the country during the celebration of Christmas. They are very expensive. We settled for some great photos instead. Practically every chapel and cathedral in the country has one. This one was our favorite. It is very large and the Presepe is surrounded by a glass encasement. Most figurines are at least 12 to 14 inches tall. They are extremely colorful, very detailed and true works of art.

Girls' Day Out In Caserta

Photo From Wikipedia

La Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5) This Italian gift-giving spirit is also known as Saint Befana or La Vecchia (the Old Woman.) In Italy they only give one gift on Christmas and then save all their presents and festivities for Jan 5 & 6th. Of course Ross was especially into this as they had been studying La Befana in school and he was pretty OK with the idea of getting another present and some candy in his stocking. Just so you know, La Befana does stop at the home of some American kids as long as they live in Italy.

Due to this tradition, it was questionable whether many things would be open on the 6th. It is very much like Christmas over here. Everyone is home with their families and the normally very busy street were empty.

Forgetting about this, Laura had planned this day for us to visit the Caserta Market which is a big outdoor market similar to what we call a swap meet in the US. There are countless numbers of canopies with people selling every thing you can imagine. It is held twice weekly in this big area about the size of a drive-in movie parking lot.

We decided to take our chances since the guys had gone to Gaeta. The drive over is about 40 minutes so that wasn't bad. We arrived and found that the market was open but just with a few merchants compared to usual when it is packed. La Befana definitely contributed to that but I think the bigger issue was rain, rain and more, heavy rain. It was quite the spectacle. The merchants yell at the top of their lungs to get your attention to come and peruse their wares. As Laura says, they sound like they are mad but they are not. I was getting so wet, even my umbrella needed an umbrella but it was fun!

We each bought one scarf and Laura got some slippers for Robert. We then decided to try to go up to a place called Casertavecchia. It is Caserta the old one (vecchia). It is on the top of a small mountain and it was really foggy going up to the top and a little scary, but Laura is a fantastic driver and she was calm so that helped.

I had been looking for a birthday present for my friend, Barb, ever since we arrived as her birthday was on the 8th, the day of our return. I love shopping for her but I want to make sure it is the right thing. I was having trouble so Laura thought that maybe Casertavecchia would be the place to find something unique. We got all the way to the top and discovered no one was even up in this town. It was a 100% la Befana moment. But it was neat and coming down some of the fog had cleared and it was a breathtaking view to behold. I had no idea that Caserta was so immense.

We went to a few more places and
had success in finally finding her gift.
Then we had a ...

Shopped a little more and then went to a nice restaurant for a late lunch in Laura's neighborhood before returning home. While having lunch Grandma Gloria told us about some of her interesting friends and she had us cracking up! We agreed that what was said at the table stayed at the table and it was FUNNY! It was a great "girls' day out and we loved it.