Palermo travel guide

Top 10 sights in Palermo

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Palermo Cathedral

   A cathedral begun in 1185 on the site of a mosque that had itself been a basilica, and rebuilt so often that it shows Norman, Gothic, Catalan and neoclassical work in one elevation. A column of the porch still carries a Qur'anic inscription, and the porphyry tombs of Roger II and Frederick II are inside.

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   2© Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cattedrale di Monreale

   Built between 1174 and 1189 by a Norman king who wanted to outdo the archbishop of Palermo, and lined with six thousand square metres of gold mosaic — the largest such cycle outside Hagia Sophia, running from the creation to the last judgment. Its cloister has two hundred and twenty-eight paired columns, every capital different.

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   3© Holger Uwe Schmitt · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cappella Palatina

   The royal chapel of the Norman palace, finished about 1140, where a Christian king's Byzantine mosaics sit under a wooden ceiling of Islamic honeycomb vaulting made by Fatimid craftsmen — with Arabic inscriptions and painted scenes of court life. Nothing else in Europe combines the three traditions so completely.

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   Martorana

   A church on Piazza Bellini, next to the Norman church of San Cataldo and facing the Baroque Santa Caterina. It is a co-cathedral where Sicily's Italo-Albanian faithful celebrate the Byzantine rite in Koine Greek and Albanian.

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   5© Jules Vaulont · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Palazzo dei Normanni

   The oldest royal residence in Europe, begun by the Arabs and rebuilt by the Norman kings, later the imperial seat of Frederick II. The Cappella Palatina inside carries Byzantine mosaics under a wooden muqarnas ceiling; the Sicilian regional assembly has sat here since 1946.

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   Chiesa di San Cataldo

   A church of 1154 with three red domes on a cube, its interior left completely bare — no paint, no plaster, just stone and light. It stands against the Martorana on the same square and is the clearest demonstration of Arab-Norman geometry in the city.

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   7© Allie_Caulfield from Germany · CC BY 2.0

   Soluntum

   A Phoenician town founded in the sixth century BC on a terrace above the sea east of Palermo, and one of the three main Punic settlements in Sicily. Its grid of streets, cisterns and mosaic floors is laid out on the hillside with the bay below.

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   Catacombe dei Cappuccini

   Corridors under a Capuchin monastery holding around a thousand two hundred and fifty bodies, dried and dressed and standing in rows — monks, professionals, priests and children, arranged by category, from 1599 to 1880. The last, Rosalia Lombardo, died in 1920 aged two and still looks asleep.

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   9© Matthias Süßen · CC BY-SA 2.5

   San Giovanni degli Eremiti

   A monastic church of the 1130s with five red domes, built on the site of a mosque and possibly by Muslim craftsmen. The interior is empty; what people come for is the small ruined cloister and its garden of palms and citrus, which is the quietest place in Palermo.

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10. 

    10© Matthias Süßen · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Zisa Palace

    A Norman pleasure palace begun about 1165 and built by Arab craftsmen — the name is the Arabic al-Aziza, the splendid. Its ground-floor hall has a fountain and honeycomb vaults arranged to draw cool air through the building, an Islamic cooling system for a Norman king.

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   HMS Thetis

   A Royal Navy T-class submarine that sank on trials in Liverpool Bay on 1 June 1939. Raised and repaired, she was recommissioned in 1940 as Thunderbolt and was lost with all hands in the Mediterranean on 14 March 1943.

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   2© Bengt Nyman · CC BY 2.0

   Quattro Canti

   The crossing of the two main streets, rebuilt from 1608 as four identical concave baroque corners, each carrying a season, a Spanish king and a patron saint of the quarter behind it. The four historic districts of Palermo meet at this point and take their names from it.

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   3© Giuseppe ME · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Santa Caterina, Palermo

   A Catholic church in the Kalsa quarter whose front faces Piazza Bellini and whose western flank looks onto the Pretoria fountain. Reworked over several centuries, it holds Renaissance, baroque and late baroque decoration together.

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   Grotta dell'Addaura

   Three caves on the northeast flank of Monte Pellegrino whose walls carry engravings of the late Palaeolithic — among them a group of figures, apparently bound and bending backwards, surrounded by others in motion. Nothing else in prehistoric European art resembles the scene.

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   Fontana Pretoria

   A monumental fountain on Piazza Pretoria in the historic centre of Palermo, dominating the square in front of the western face of Santa Caterina. Francesco Camilliani made it in Florence in 1544; it was sold and moved to Palermo, where it was reassembled in 1574.

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   Church of the Gesù

   A Jesuit church begun in 1564 whose interior is worked in marmi mischi — cut and inlaid coloured marble covering every surface in fruit, birds and figures. Bombing in 1943 destroyed part of it, and the restoration took decades; it is the most extravagant interior in Sicily.

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   Palazzo Abatellis

   A palace in the Kalsa quarter of Palermo, also called the Palazzo Patella. The regional gallery of Sicily is housed in it, with Antonello da Messina's Annunciate Virgin as its best-known holding.

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   8© Tango7174 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Piazza Pretoria

   A square dominated by a fountain of 1554 crowded with nude river gods, nymphs and animals in white marble. The nuns of the convent opposite objected so strongly that Palermo took to calling the whole place the square of shame, and the name stuck.

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   9© Allie_Caulfield · CC BY 2.0

   Porta Nuova

   City gate of Palermo, rebuilt in 1583 to mark Charles V's return from Tunis. Its pilasters are carved as bearded Moors, and a loggia of 1669 sits above the arch.

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    10© Dedda71 · CC BY 3.0

    Orto botanico di Palermo

    The botanical garden of the department of botany at the University of Palermo, and a centre of research and teaching. It covers about 120,000 square metres of red soil over calcareous tufa.

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