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Palermo is the capital and largest city of Sicily, spread around a wide gulf on the Tyrrhenian Sea beneath the bulk of Monte Pellegrino. Founded by the Phoenicians in 734 BC, it was ruled by Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs, became capital of the Emirate of Sicily, and from 1130 was the seat of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.
That layered past shows in its streets, where red Arab-style domes, Byzantine mosaics and Baroque squares stand side by side. Its Arab-Norman churches and palaces are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is known for its noisy street markets, its street food such as arancine and panelle, and the grand Teatro Massimo.
Beyond the center, the sandy bay of Mondello is the city's beach, and a winding road climbs Monte Pellegrino to the cave shrine of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint. Palermo is also a good base for the cathedral of Monreale and the coast and towns of western Sicily.
Palermo Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption, was founded in 1185 by the Norman archbishop Walter Ophamil on the site of an earlier basilica that had become a mosque. Its corner towers and Gothic porch mix with a neoclassical dome added from 1781, and it holds royal Norman tombs.
Quattro Canti, officially Piazza Vigliena, is the Baroque crossroads of Palermo, where Via Maqueda meets Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the four historic quarters touch. Laid out between 1608 and 1620, its four curved facades are decorated with fountains and statues of seasons, kings and saints.
The Fontana Pretoria is a monumental Renaissance fountain on Piazza Pretoria in Palermo, one block from the Quattro Canti. Carved in Florence by Francesco Camilliani, it was sold, shipped and reassembled in Palermo in 1574, and its many nude statues once earned it a scandalous nickname.
The Teatro Massimo on Piazza Verdi in Palermo is the largest opera house in Italy and among the largest in Europe, renowned for its acoustics. Designed by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile and finished by his son Ernesto, it opened in 1897, and guided tours show its grand auditorium and stage.
San Giovanni degli Eremiti is a former monastic church in Palermo's Albergaria quarter, restored by King Roger II for Benedictine monks around 1136. Its plain interior matters less than its red Islamic domes, the ruined Romanesque cloister and the lush garden, which make it a symbol of old Palermo.
The Martorana, or Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, is a church on Piazza Bellini in Palermo founded by the admiral George of Antioch in the 12th century. Its glittering Byzantine mosaics are among the finest in Sicily, and it still serves the Italo-Albanian community, who follow the Byzantine Rite.
The Church of San Cataldo on Piazza Bellini in Palermo is a small Arab-Norman church from the 12th century, standing beside the Martorana. Its cubic shape, blind arches, Arab-style battlements and three red domes make it one of the city's most striking sights, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Zisa is a grand 12th-century summer palace in western Palermo, begun around 1165 by Arab craftsmen for the Norman king William I and finished under William II. Its name comes from the Arabic al-Aziza, the splendid, and inside it holds a museum of Islamic art around a fountain hall.
Ballarò is the oldest of the historic street markets of Palermo, filling the lanes of Albergheria with stalls of fruit, vegetables, spices, meat and fish. Vendors call out their wares in a loud singsong known as abbanniata, and cooked street food such as panelle and arancine is sold all around.
The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo are burial crypts beneath a Capuchin monastery, begun in the late 16th century when the friars began preserving their dead. Later it became a status symbol for local families, and today thousands of mummified bodies in their clothes line the corridors.
Mondello is the seaside district of Palermo, set on a sandy bay framed by Mount Gallo and Monte Pellegrino in the north of the city. Once a fishing village, it is now the city's favorite beach, with clear water, an Art Nouveau bathing pavilion on a pier and seafood restaurants around the old harbor.
Monte Pellegrino is the rocky headland rising 606 meters over Palermo, closing the gulf to the north and protected as a nature reserve. On its slopes, against a cliff, stands the Sanctuary of Santa Rosalia, built over the cave where the relics of the patron saint were found in 1624.
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