Palermo
Discover Palermo
A concise introduction to Palermo, its geography, history and culture.
Introduction
Palermo is the capital of Sicily and a city of about six hundred and thirty thousand people, on the island’s north coast in a bowl of fertile land between mountains and the sea, historically called the Conca d’Oro.
The historic centre is quartered by two straight streets crossing at the Quattro Canti, and each quarter has a market and a character. Around them are the great buildings of the Norman period, several of them UNESCO-listed under the heading Arab-Norman Palermo.
The city is not tidy. Bombing in 1943 and decades of speculative building afterwards left gaps, ruins and half-restored palaces scattered through the centre, often next to something magnificent. Restoration is visibly ongoing and visibly incomplete.
Two things sit just outside and belong on any itinerary: the cathedral at Monreale in the hills above, and the beach at Mondello below Monte Pellegrino.