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Gia-Gina Across the Pond

So I've decided to follow my husband to his native Italy. Follow our adventures as we eat, drink, travel, adapt to and explore this remarkable country. Part food blog, part photo blog but mostly my rants and raves. After our two years in Italy, we relocated across the Atlantic "pond" and are back in the States.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Reggia di Veneria Reale

Reggia basically means royal residence and Veneria Reale is the name of the location. This royal complex (built in the mid 1600’s) was expansive and currently under restoration. During it’s time, this was the largest and grandest palace in Europe. Today there was scaffolding, paint buckets, bags of plaster and other construction material strewn about. Many of the windows have not been replaced and so birds have flown in and made themselves comfortable. Statues were missing, frescos were ruined and the whole place looked like it was vandalized, in fact it had. After the French Revolution, Napoleon pillaged some of the statues and moved them. The restoration project has been going on for 7 years; they hope to be finished in 2006. From the looks of things today, they still have a long way to go

2 Comments:

At 12:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is a web site devoted to the restoration works.
Also, nowaday Veneria is often spelled Venaria [your spelling was not a mistake]
http://www.lavenaria.it/eng/index.htm.


May I suggest a site for your wandering? look for the Forte di Fenestrelle. From Pinerolo to Sestriere. An impressive fortification on the mountains. [a lot, really a l o t, of steps though]

 
At 3:54 PM, Blogger Gia-Gina said...

PC,

Who are you? You don't have a site I see. Anyways thank you for the info. I will look on Virgilio.it, I always appreciate advice. Are you in Torino?

 

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