Palermo, up close.

Civic Memory

The Falcone Tree

The ficus in front of Giovanni Falcone's home, covered in messages, photographs and notes since 1992.

Notarbartolo 20 min Free entry Food & Tradition

Antica Focacceria San Francesco

Open since 1834 in front of the basilica of San Francesco: the historic institution of Palermo street food.

Kalsa 40 min Ticketed Surroundings

Solunto Archaeological Site

A Hellenistic city suspended above the sea, with paved streets, cisterns and mosaics, and almost always empty.

Santa Flavia 90 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route

Basilica della Magione (Holy Trinity)

The last Norman church in Palermo, later the seat of the Teutonic Knights. A silent cloister with a well, an olive and a fig tree.

Kalsa 30 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi

A zig-zag Gothic portal, a 13th-century rose window and the first Renaissance work ever made in Sicily.

Kalsa 25 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa

A late 19th-century furniture factory turned cultural hub: cinema, theatre, contemporary art and street art.

Zisa 60 min Free entry Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Palatine Chapel

Byzantine gold mosaics, an Islamic muqarnas ceiling and Cosmatesque floors: three civilisations in a single room.

Albergheria 40 min Ticketed Civic Memory

House-Museum of Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi

The home of Don Pino Puglisi, parish priest of Brancaccio, murdered by the mafia on his 56th birthday.

Brancaccio 45 min Free entry Arab-Norman Route

La Cuba Palace

The Zisa's austere twin: a Fatimid block that once stood in the middle of an artificial lake.

Zisa / Calatafimi 30 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Zisa Palace and Museum of Islamic Art

The Norman kings' pleasure palace, built by Arab craftsmen with a cooling system that still works.

Zisa 60 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route

Maredolce Castle (Favara Palace)

An Islamic-era palace that stood on an island in a lake, now swallowed by the housing of Brancaccio.

Brancaccio 40 min Free entry Museums & Galleries

Capuchin Catacombs

Around 1,250 mummified bodies displayed standing along the corridors, dressed as in life. Not a place for everyone.

Cappuccini 45 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Palermo Cathedral

Eight hundred years of rebuilding in one structure: Norman, Catalan Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical coexist without ever merging.

Capo / Cassaro 60 min Churches & Oratories

Church of the Gesù (Casa Professa)

An anonymous façade hiding a vertiginous interior: the absolute masterpiece of the Sicilian marmi mischi technique.

Albergheria 40 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Church of the Most Holy Saviour

An elliptical plan and exceptional acoustics: today one of the finest concert halls in Palermo.

Cassaro 25 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Church of the Immaculate Conception at the Capo

Hidden inside the Capo market, one of the most richly decorated churches in Italy. Ticket price: two euros.

Capo 25 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Church of San Cataldo

Three red domes on a crenellated cube. Inside there is nothing: only light, stone and the original 12th-century floor.

Kalsa / Piazza Bellini 20 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Church of San Domenico

The Pantheon of illustrious Sicilians: Giovanni Falcone, Francesco Crispi and Stanislao Cannizzaro are buried here.

Vucciria / Loggia 30 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Church of San Giorgio dei Genovesi

The church of the Genoese merchant colony, sober and Renaissance in a city turning Baroque.

Loggia 20 min Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Church of Saint John of the Hermits

Five red domes above a citrus garden and a 13th-century cloister: the most photographed image of Norman Palermo.

Albergheria 40 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route

Church of Saint John of the Lepers

Considered the oldest Norman church in Palermo, founded beside a leper hospital in 1119.

Brancaccio / Oreto 20 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Church of San Giuseppe dei Teatini

The great corner church at the Quattro Canti: monumental columns, a two-level crypt and terraces over the roofs of the Cassaro.

Quattro Canti 30 min Churches & Oratories

Church of San Matteo al Cassaro

Dense Baroque on the Cassaro, with four stucco allegories by Giacomo Serpotta and an underground crypt.

Cassaro 20 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Church of Sant'Ignazio all'Olivella

The Oratorians' large church beside the Salinas Museum: a monumental façade and an interior clad in polychrome marble.

Olivella 20 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (La Gancia)

Chiaramonte Gothic, a wooden ceiling, Serpotta stuccoes and the 'escape hole' of the 1860 revolt.

Kalsa 25 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Church of Santa Maria della Catena

Catalan Gothic overlooking the old harbour: the name comes from the chain that closed off the Cala.

Cala 20 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Church of Santa Maria della Pietà

A Baroque façade by Giacomo Amato in a Kalsa side street, with a luminous frescoed interior.

Kalsa 20 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Church of Santa Maria di Valverde

One of the densest Baroque interiors in the city: marmi mischi from floor to dome, and almost always empty.

Loggia 20 min Arab-Norman Route

Church of the Holy Spirit (Church of the Vespers)

On 31 March 1282, in front of this church, the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers broke out.

Cimitero di Sant'Orsola 25 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Church and Monastery of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Overwhelming Baroque, a visitable Dominican cloister, rooftop terraces and a pastry shop reviving the nuns' recipes.

Piazza Bellini 50 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Benedictine Cloister of Monreale

228 paired columns, no two capitals alike: a carved encyclopaedia of the 12th century.

Monreale 45 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Santa Maria dello Spasimo

A roofless Gothic church, with sky instead of a vault and a tree grown up in the nave.

Kalsa 40 min Free entry Surroundings Unesco

Cefalù Cathedral

The oldest Christ Pantocrator of Norman Sicily, beneath a rock cliff plunging to the sea.

Cefalù 60 min Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Monreale Cathedral

6,500 square metres of gold mosaic: the largest Byzantine mosaic cycle in Italy and, after Hagia Sophia, the largest in the world.

Monreale 90 min Ticketed Squares, Gates & Monuments

Pretoria Fountain

Forty-eight nude statues bought in Florence, dismantled into 644 pieces and reassembled in Palermo: the Fountain of Shame.

Piazza Pretoria 20 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Garraffo Fountain

Palermo Baroque in miniature, with a name from the Arabic gharraf: abundant water.

Piazza Marina 10 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Foro Italico Umberto I

The great seafront lawn where Palermitans spend their Sundays: built on the rubble of the 1943 bombings.

Kalsa / lungomare 40 min Free entry Museums & Galleries

GAM — Empedocle Restivo Modern Art Gallery

Two centuries of Sicilian painting in a former Franciscan convent: the best-installed and best-air-conditioned museum in the city.

Kalsa 75 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Regional Gallery of Sicily — Palazzo Abatellis

Antonello da Messina's Annunciate and the Triumph of Death, in a Carlo Scarpa installation that is itself a masterpiece.

Kalsa 75 min Ticketed Parks & Gardens

English Garden (Parco Piersanti Mattarella)

The romantic park of 19th-century Palermo, with palms, ficus trees and a children's play area.

Libertà 30 min Free entry Food & Tradition

I Cuochini

An 1826 fry shop hidden in a courtyard: order at the counter, eat standing, spend almost nothing.

Politeama 20 min Ticketed Squares, Gates & Monuments

La Cala — the Old Harbour

The natural inlet where Palermo was born three thousand years ago, now a marina full of sailing boats.

Cala / Castellammare 30 min Free entry Historic Markets

La Vucciria

Palermo's most famous market, almost gone as a market and reborn as an evening street food quarter.

Loggia / Castellammare 40 min Free entry Historic Markets

Capo Market

The city's narrowest and most theatrical market, with the Immacolata church hidden among the stalls.

Capo / Seralcadi 45 min Free entry Historic Markets

Ballarò Market

Palermo's oldest and liveliest market: a thousand years of unbroken trading and today one of the city's most multicultural areas.

Albergheria 60 min Free entry Historic Markets

Borgo Vecchio Market

The Palermitans' market: barely touristy by day, packed with locals in the evening amid grills and music.

Borgo Vecchio 40 min Free entry Nature & Sea

Mondello

A kilometre and a half of white sand and turquoise water between two headlands, twenty minutes from the centre.

Mondello 180 min Nature & Sea

Monte Pellegrino — Belvedere

The headland closing the Conca d'Oro: Goethe called it the most beautiful promontory in the world.

Monte Pellegrino 60 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Mura delle Cattive

An elevated walkway on the walls, once reserved for widows in mourning: hence the name.

Kalsa 20 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

Falcone and Borsellino Mural — Nautical Institute

The two magistrates painted at monumental scale on a school façade, facing the port.

Cala / Kalsa 10 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

San Benedetto il Moro Mural — Ballarò

Palermo's black saint, the son of African slaves, painted on a wall in the city's most multicultural district.

Ballarò / Albergheria 10 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

Santa Rosalia Mural — Largo Gerbasi

Palermo's patron saint painted at urban scale on an Albergheria wall, a short walk from San Giovanni degli Eremiti.

Albergheria 10 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

Via Porta Sant'Agata Mural — Ballarò

One of the large mural works that turned Ballarò's blank walls into an open-air gallery.

Ballarò / Albergheria 10 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

Danisinni District Murals

An isolated, forgotten district that regenerated itself through murals, a social farm and a circus.

Danisinni 45 min Free entry Street Art & Murals

Vicolo Gallo Murals

An Albergheria dead-end turned into a gallery: portraits of famous Palermitans and neighbourhood scenes.

Albergheria 10 min Free entry Museums & Galleries

Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum

The Selinunte metopes, the bronze ram of Syracuse and the Palermo Stone, bearing the annals of the pharaohs.

Olivella 90 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Diocesan Museum of Palermo

Inside the Archbishop's Palace, works rescued from churches destroyed in the 1943 bombing.

Cassaro 60 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Giuseppe Pitrè Sicilian Ethnographic Museum

Painted carts, votive panels, nativity scenes and tools: popular Sicily as gathered by the man who first studied it.

Favorita 60 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Gaetano Giorgio Gemmellaro Geological Museum

Dwarf elephants, Sicilian fossils and 'Thea', the oldest human skeleton found in Sicily.

Albergheria / Università 45 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum

Over 5,000 puppets, marionettes and shadow figures from around the world, with an in-house theatre for Opera dei Pupi performances.

Kalsa 50 min Ticketed Civic Memory

No Mafia Memorial

The story of Cosa Nostra and those who fought it, told without Hollywood aesthetics. Free entry.

Cassaro 50 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Oratory of the Whites

The seat of the company that assisted the condemned, now a museum of Serpotta stuccoes rescued from the rubble.

Kalsa 30 min Free entry Churches & Oratories

Oratory of the Rosary in San Domenico

Stuccoes by Giacomo Serpotta and, on the altar, the Madonna of the Rosary painted by Anthony van Dyck in Palermo in 1628.

Vucciria 25 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Oratory of the Rosary in Santa Cita

Giacomo Serpotta's absolute masterpiece: fifteen stucco tableaux and a wall that stages the Battle of Lepanto.

Loggia / Cavalieri di Malta 30 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Oratory of San Lorenzo

Serpotta stuccoes and the void left by the Caravaggio stolen in 1969, Italy's most famous unsolved art theft.

Kalsa 25 min Ticketed Parks & Gardens

Palermo Botanical Garden

Ten hectares of tropical and Mediterranean plants, with one of Europe's largest ficus trees and Neoclassical 18th-century glasshouses.

Kalsa / Villa Giulia 90 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzina Cinese (Royal Chinese House)

A royal residence in Chinese style, built in 1799 for the king of Naples fleeing Napoleon.

Favorita 50 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo Ajutamicristo

A Catalan Gothic palace by Matteo Carnilivari that hosted Charles V: it now holds the 'Pupa del Capo' mosaic.

Kalsa 30 min Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo Asmundo

18th-century frescoes, majolica and private collections, with a balcony framing the Cathedral.

Cassaro / Cattedrale 40 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Palazzo Belmonte Riso — Museum of Contemporary Art of Sicily

Contemporary art inside a bombed 18th-century palace: the rebuilding created the exhibition spaces.

Cassaro 45 min Ticketed Museums & Galleries

Palazzo Branciforte

A 16th-century pawn house restored by Gae Aulenti: three storeys of wooden racking and wide-ranging collections.

Monte di Pietà 60 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo Butera

Palermo's most successful private restoration: old and contemporary art, sea-facing terraces and the building site left on show.

Kalsa / Foro Italico 75 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri

A medieval fortress, seat of the Spanish Inquisition and today the university rectorate: the prisoners' graffiti survive in the cells.

Kalsa / Piazza Marina 75 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo Conte Federico

A tower of the Punic walls absorbed into a palace still lived in by the same family after eight centuries.

Albergheria 60 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo Mirto

An aristocratic residence left exactly as it was: original furniture, wall hangings, kitchens and stables.

Kalsa 50 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Norman Palace (Royal Palace)

Punic fortress, emirs' castle, Norman royal palace and today the seat of the Sicilian Parliament: nine centuries of power under one roof.

Albergheria 90 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Palazzo delle Aquile (Palazzo Pretorio)

Palermo's city hall since 1470: a grand staircase, ceremonial rooms and the best view of San Cataldo.

Piazza Pretoria 25 min Free entry Parks & Gardens

Favorita Park

Four hundred hectares of Bourbon royal reserve at the foot of Monte Pellegrino: Palermo's green lung.

Favorita / Monte Pellegrino 60 min Free entry Food & Tradition

Pasticceria Cappello

The pastry shop where the Setteveli cake was created: cannoli, cassate and frutta martorana in the Palermo school.

Colonna Rotta / Zisa 30 min Ticketed Squares, Gates & Monuments

Piazza Bellini

Three red Norman domes, a 14th-century bell tower and a Baroque church within twenty square metres.

Cassaro 15 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Piazza Marina and the Garibaldi Garden

One of Europe's largest ficus trees, in a square that was once a harbour, a tournament ground and the site of Inquisition burnings.

Kalsa 30 min Free entry Museums & Galleries

Villa Zito Picture Gallery

A Neoclassical villa on Palermo's Art Nouveau-era avenue, with a collection of Sicilian painting from the 17th to the 20th century.

Libertà 60 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Admiral's Bridge

A Norman bridge of 1131 that has lost its river, and in 1860 the site of Garibaldi's first clash at the gates of Palermo.

Oreto / Brancaccio 15 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Porta Felice

A gate with no arch: built that way so Santa Rosalia's triumphal float could pass through.

Kalsa / Foro Italico 10 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Porta Nuova

Four telamons with severed arms celebrate Charles V's victory over Tunis, beneath a majolica-tiled roof.

Palazzo Reale 10 min Free entry Squares, Gates & Monuments

Quattro Canti (Piazza Vigliena)

The Baroque crossroads that divides Palermo into four: fountains, seasons, Spanish kings and patron saints on every corner.

Cassaro 15 min Free entry Nature & Sea

Capo Gallo Nature Reserve

Limestone cliffs, clear water and wild goats a short walk from Mondello: Palermo's marine reserve.

Mondello / Sferracavallo 180 min Ticketed Arab-Norman Route Unesco

Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (The Martorana)

12th-century Byzantine mosaics and the only contemporary portrait of Roger II. The Greek-Byzantine rite is still celebrated here.

Kalsa / Piazza Bellini 30 min Ticketed Churches & Oratories

Sanctuary of Santa Rosalia on Monte Pellegrino

A church built inside a cave, where in 1624 the bones were found that stopped the plague.

Monte Pellegrino 60 min Free entry Museums & Galleries

Stanze al Genio — Museum of Majolica Tiles

A lived-in private home, with over 5,000 majolica tiles from the 16th to the 20th century on its walls.

Kalsa 50 min Ticketed Theatres & Performing Arts

Teatro Biondo

Palermo's repertory theatre: contemporary drama and classics, in an early 20th-century hall on Via Roma.

Via Roma 15 min Theatres & Performing Arts

Teatro Massimo

Italy's largest opera house, closed for twenty-three years and reopened in 1997. The finale of The Godfather Part III.

Piazza Verdi 60 min Ticketed Theatres & Performing Arts

Teatro Politeama Garibaldi

A triumphal arch, a bronze quadriga and a horseshoe plan: home of the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra.

Politeama 25 min Theatres & Performing Arts

Puppet Theatre — Figli d'Arte Cuticchio

The family that kept the Opera dei Pupi alive in Palermo: live performances and a workshop you can visit.

Olivella 70 min Ticketed Squares, Gates & Monuments

Tower of San Nicolò all'Albergheria

A 14th-century watchtower above Ballarò: a 360-degree view over the roofs of the old town.

Albergheria / Ballarò 30 min Ticketed Parks & Gardens

Villa Giulia (Villa del Popolo)

Palermo's first public garden, from 1778. Goethe called it the most wonderful place in the world.

Kalsa / Foro Italico 30 min Free entry Palaces & Historic Houses

Villa Igiea

Ernesto Basile's Art Nouveau masterpiece: conceived as a sanatorium, it became the most elegant hotel in the Mediterranean.

Acquasanta 30 min Arab-Norman Route

Villa Napoli and the Cuba Soprana

A 16th-century villa built over a Norman pavilion, with the Cubula, a tiny red-domed kiosk, in the garden.

Altarello 40 min Free entry Surroundings

Villa Palagonia (Villa of the Monsters)

Sixty monster statues on the boundary wall and a hall lined with mirrors: Baroque turning into nightmare.

Bagheria 60 min Ticketed Palaces & Historic Houses

Villino Florio all'Olivuzza

The manifesto of Italian Art Nouveau, known in Italy as Liberty, designed by Ernesto Basile at twenty-six for the Florio family.

Olivuzza / Zisa 40 min Free entry