Palazzo de Chiaramonte Steri

 

Buon giorno,

I unwrapped my bread for breakfast and was rewarded with a wonderful bready scent. The taste was lovely, too. The bread is very chewy and goes great with hummus.

When I set out it was a brilliantly sunny but quiet Sunday morning. My first errand was grocery shopping. I am surprised that the grocery store is open Sundays. Maybe this is due to the number of immigrants? There was little traffic, which was great. Palermo traffic is my bete noire--or I should say bestia nera.  You would 1) be horrified to see the nonchalant way I wade into traffic, and 2) be equally horrified by how close the cars, buses, motorcycles come to hitting me. They'll stop, but they like cutting it fine.

I carefully copied down the directions to my target destination.  I made my way hitting all my goal points until suddenly they evaporated.  I back tracked and circled around. The promised street was not there. I guessed. Sometimes this works out for me. This time it didn't. But I had a Plan B. I knew my destination was not far from where I'd been yesterday, and if I could find it, Palazzo de Chiaramonte would be just a few minutes away.

As it happened I stumbled on the Palazzo by accident having fetched up and become distracted by a flea market.  I got my ticket. A discount for being old was on offer, but the nice young woman explained apologetically it was only for those over seventy. Heh! I qualify, and I proved it with my passport after she expressed some flattering skepticism. 

The Palazzo is visited by guided tour--mostly in Italian, but information in English is also offered, but I had to wait half an hour, and there was no place to sit. I became stiff.  The Palazzo was built by a Norman Family. Chiaramonte is the Italian translation of the original family name Clermont. Chiara means light in Italian. Alas the family fell victim to a plot and a charge of treason, so the Spanish took over the palazzo.

The tour was very interesting and informative. We began with the cells used by the Spanish Inquisition once Spain had acquired rule over Southern Italy and Sicily. Meh, I thought, but it turned out to be fascinating because of the paintings the prisoners left to express and protest their plight. The figures are crude but powerful and make use of Bible stories and saints lives to express their innocence and hope for justice.

We also visited the Great Hall, but we had to be quiet because it was being used for a meeting of Important People. This is the original ceiling though. So all in all, it was a good day out.

I got some prosciutto de San Daniele for my apero. It has a protected origin and is the rarest and fanciest prosciutto one can buy according to knowledgeable connoisseurs. It's very tasty indeed and goes well with my green tea and limoncello drink--very refreshing after a day of touristing in warm weather.

I'm trying a new pasta, a variety stuffed with pumpkin (how seasonal!) called girasole or sunflower due to its shape.  I dressed it with some salt, pepper, garlic, and olive oil. Let's have a bite.  Good, and slightly sweet, but not very pumpkiny.

Ciao for now