Day 9.Sunday 16 March. Flamboyant Sunday.

It was time for a slower pace; feet & knees were protesting fiercely. Another cold, crisp, cloudy morning. Options were: visit the famous flea market at Salamanca or take in some culture with an exhibition of installations at the Liria Palace. Option 2 won…fantastic choice. D has the metro system down pat, so we quickly arrived at the destination with time for the essential coffee hit. 

The palace is set back on a main commercial avenue & surrounded by gardens. T. gulped at admission price of 19 euros each but D said ‘what the heck’ or something similar.

Lisbon artist Joana Vasconcelos had created pieces (mostly very big) to blend with the opulent furnishing/decorations within this ancestral home of the Duke of Alba.

Curiously, the palace had been ‘destroyed’ in a fire in 1936 but renovated completely and while now stuffed full of the family’s collection of treasures, at the time of the fire the collection had been safely stashed in various locations. T wondered what the palace rooms had held in ‘36?

Room after room showed furnishings, tapestries, paintings, ornaments etc collected over 5+ centuries & included ‘current’ family photos. Wealth, power, lineage…What a family history!

And the artist’s additions! Yes, she focused on the stuff of the everyday, with a distinctly feminine perspective.

And then the garden…

Magic Moment.

At the hair installation Perruque there was reference to some human hair being used; T asked the attendant ‘Which one is human hair?’To which the answer was, ‘I don’t know’. Whereupon T commented on the attendant’s terrific hair and said, ‘You’ve been to the same hairdresser!’ There was a shared laughter & the attendant was happy to have her photo taken.

Dinner. Flamboyant Corn. All of yesterday’s concoction plus more chorizo, herbs, beans….and corn cobs. With an Arco del Sol, Ribera del Duero Roble Tempranillo 2023.