It is surrounded by plowed fields and hay bales. Ancient olive trees and blue sky as far as the eye can see.

Donnafugata castle is located at few kilometres from Ragusa but being there gives you the feeling of entering in a parallel dimension, to go back in time, when in the nineteenth century, the Baron Corrado Arezzo de Spuches converted the summer house in the current castle. The Baron was a Senator of the Italian Kingdom, a powerful man, a politician. It is said that he deflected the course of the railways so that his guests could comfortably reach the castle.

You have just entered the castle climbing the massive staircase and going into the first door. Magnificent and elegant ballrooms, smoking rooms for royal dastardly of the Ragusa Nobility, music parlors for ladies and noblewomen, exotic seascapes and Sicilian campaigns painted on the walls, trompe l’oeil and funny butterflies laying to the mirrors for deceiving and entertaining.

Walking from one room to another and dreaming, you can see the Baron’s guests moving, dancing, chatting.

From 2015 the clothing brand of Gabrielle Arezzo of Trafiletti was purchased by the town of Ragusa and exhibited in the halls of the palace: the feeling of jumping into the past is even stronger. The clothes that inspired Angelica’s dress in the Gattopardo, the one of Vincenzo Bellini and again bustiers, shoes, capes. Soft silk stoles, ribbons, beads, hooks, drawstrings. Gaudy taffeta and chenille, vests, trousers and cylinders. Feel the notes of the ”Norma” in the air, the rustle of the skirts, the pungent smell of pipes and cigars.
The magic continues in the eight-hectare park , with its stone labyrinth, where I became kid again, and once more agaves, passion flowers, slender and tall palm trees, all around a waterfall of white stone.

Lavender everywhere.