Palermo is a unique city, able to offer its visitors spectacular views and extraordinary immersion in history. Priceless art, culture, great food, and various opportunities to have fun in company make it a city to visit during your holiday in Sicily.
Once you arrived, you will be spoilt for choice to decide what to visit first. Palermo is wide and boasts centuries of history and a large number of foreign dominations that have left traces in its streets. For example, one of the most surprising cultural influences in the Arab Norman: you can go to Piazza Indipendenza, one of the central squares of Palermo, to admire two of its most important symbols: the Palatine Chapel and the Royal Palace, the jewels of the Arab-Norman route in Sicily.
The Royal Palace is a thousand-year history that tells the mastery and architecture of the Arabs combined with the power of the Norman kings, who chose the Palace as their residence. Today the Palace is the seat of the Assembly of the Region of Sicily.
Inside the Palace is the Palatine Chapel, built in 1130 by king Ruggero II, eager ot have a private chapel in the Palace. this is the meeting point between three different cultures and religions, since Islamic, latine and Byzantine workers have been involved in both architecture and decoration. the greatest attraction inside the Chapel are its mosaics, consisting of two glass plates divided by a very thin layer of gold.
Once, the visit is over, you can continue to the Cathedral of Palermo, whose birth dates back to 1170, during the reign of William II, when the pre-exhisting Cathedral was rebuilt after the damage of the eathquake in 1169. The history of the Cathedral saw alternating Christian worship with the Muslim one, when during the saracen occupation it was transformed into a mosque, and then returned to its original cult with the arrival of the Normans in 1072. This is what made the Cathedral packed with works of art and decorations from different cultures and eras, making it today a cultural jewel of inestimable value.
From the Arab-Norman beauty, you will then pass to the wonder of Baroque art in Palermo, visiting the Church of Santissimo Salvatore. Founded in Norman times, in 1528 its typical Norman structure trasformed into a basilical form. the church finally acquired its present form in 1682, when its structure was totally revolutionized by Paolo Amato with mixed marbles and tramischi embellishing the walls, a typical baroque tecnique.
And how to forget the typical sicilian gastronomy? With a stop at Antico Merato del Capo one of Palermo’s historic markets and a very popular neighbourhood, founded in the Muslim era and inhabited by the Schiavoni, pirates and slave traders. The market is one of the beating hearts of Palermo’s folklore, where the scents of typical Sicilian delicacies mingle with the choruses and chants of the vendors, the so-called ‘abbanniare’, inviting customers to approach their stalls. The stalls wake up early in the morning, offering their customers all kinds of foodstuffs: fish, meat, bread, olives, fruit and spices.
Once you have finished the tour of the Mercato del Capo you can leave for the Teatro Massimo and Teatro Politema. The Teatro Massimo is the third largest opera house in Europe, it consists of an elegant and pompous architecture, surrounded by stairs and statues. Inside its many rooms, the wonder is the master, from the sumptuosus Great Hall, with its ancient flower-shaped air system, to the Pompeian Hall with its incredible acoustics.
The Teatro Politeama is an imposing building in Pompeian and neoclassical style, which stands on Piazza Ruggero Settimo. The theatre dominates the Piazza thanks to its double portico with Doric and Ionic cloums colminating in the Triumphal Arch entrance. The theatre inaugurated its vry first season in 1874 with thw opera “i Capileti e i Montecchi”. Its interior is horseshoe-shaped with two tiers of boxes and a double gallery while the dome is decorated in sky-blue.