Villa Della Regina

The queen's palace, or, it's goooood to be the queen!

While we were atop the Mole last week, we spied a palace on a hillside just outside of town and decided it was someplace we wanted to see. We checked it out on a few maps and figured it wasn't too far from some places we had already visited. So we loaded up a bag with some apples and water and hoofed it up a steady incline for a bit and were rewarded with quite a view of the city. You can see the Mole in the distance in a lot of our photos. There was next to no one there, and of course, nothing was in English. But it was freeeeee! So, yay! We watched some of a video about the history of the building and were able to piece together some of its past. It was a favorite place of the Savoy queens to go for relaxation and to get away from the hustle and pressures of town. After unification, it was used as a girls' school - there were lots of photos of uniformed girls with huge hair bows sitting in rows of desks in mirrored and frescoed rooms. Cool. Then it got seriously damaged during WWII bombing and wasn't renovated properly until the late 1990s.

The grounds of this place were great! Lots of statues, fountains and folly buildings. (And lizards - and tadpoles- G was happy.) And like I said, there were only a few other people around, so we had it mostly to ourselves.

After a much more pleasant decent, we stopped for some focaccia and cookies and ate them on the steps of the Gran Madre di Dio Church. Gorgeous day and a nice visit.