PIAZZA PLEBISCITO, Royal Palace Interior

Are you ready to visit the Royal Palace? Not only do rooms and halls worthy of a king await you, but also great works of art. Its style of decorations corresponds to the three main eras of the palace's history: a representative place for the viceroys from the 1600s, then the private apartment of the Bourbons and Joaquim Murat between the 1700s and 1800s, and finally the residence of the Savoys. In fact Vittorio Emanuele III was born here, who was the king of Italy that reigned for the longest period of time: from 1900 until after the end of World War II. As you will see, the Neoclassical style is the most prevalent, but with many excellent paintings from the 1600s and various furniture and tapestries from Paris and Parma.

You can reach the royal apartment from the courtyard of honor, or three-sided main courtyard, by going up the sumptuous staircase that was renovated in the mid-1800s after the palace was devastated by a fire. The marble that covers the staircase is not simply a decorative embellishment, but also has a symbolic value: in fact, it comes only from the quarries of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

At the top of the stairs you'll find a corridor that runs around the entire courtyard and gives you access to the various parts: the private apartment of the sovereigns, the court theater, the chapel, and so on.

The tour includes an impressive thirty furnished, monumental rooms. Among the most interesting, in order I suggest: the beautiful Court Theater that was built in the mid-1700s, the nineteenth-century Throne Room, the Gran Capitano Hall with a portrait attributed to Titian, and the personal study of the king furnished with the Parisian furniture originally made for Napoleon.

In the Queen's apartment, pay special attention to the Hall of Landscapes and the Queen's First Sitting Room, both with excellent paintings from the 1600s.

The visit ends with the vast Hercules Hall and the Palatina Chapel, where you'll see a Neapolitan specialty: a large nativity scene with over 300 statuettes.

FUN FACT: in the Appartamento delle Feste, or Party Apartment, that was built around the mid-1800s in a wing of the Royal Palace, you can visit the National Library with its around two million volumes, including truly priceless and delicate papyrus rolls: in fact, they were found carbonized in an Ercolano villa that had been buried in lava after the famous Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD!