Address: Piazza Leoni, 90143 Palermo
Admission to the Parco della Favorita is free.
The Chinese House is open with the following hours:
Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entrance at 6:30 p.m.)
Sundays (only the first of each month) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The “Real Parco della Favorita,” named in memory of the villa of the same name in Herculaneum, was built by order of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon between 1799 and 1801, during his removal from Naples imposed on him by the Parthenopean Revolution. Created as a hunting reserve and delight, it still retains elements of its sumptuous past and, with its 400 hectares, can be called Palermo’s “green lung.” The park, built in the French style and designed by Palermo architect Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia, was embellished with long tree-lined avenues bordering groves and glades, with exedras, seats and fountains, and reached its heyday during the 19th century. Within the first decade of that century Marvuglia built, by expanding an earlier building of oriental style, the “Chinese Lodge,” which was to be used as a royal residence. In 1877 it passed to the State Property and in 1935 was transferred to the Municipality of Palermo. Today it is part of the “Monte Pellegrino” Nature Reserve and within it insist the racetrack, stadium and other sports facilities. The gardens of the “Chinese Casina” still remain, with an area originally laid out as an English garden, with irregular paths, pond and groves, and a formal garden with “Italian-style flora” designed by Giuseppe Patricolo, geometric parterres and fountains. Patricolo also designed the neo-Gothic hunting “towers” and the Roman-style warehouse for the maceration of Sicilian sumac, used for tanning hides, now called “Casa Natura.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.gardenrouteitalia.it/parco-della-favorita
