Everything We Loved In Palermo: What we did, where we visited & what we ate!

The capital of the Italian island of Sicily, Palermo is bright, busy, vibrant, delicious and the perfect introduction to Sicily. We spent a few days in Palermo at the start of our Sicilian road trip and I’d recommend it both as a starting point for a similar journey, or as the perfect long weekend destination if street food, historic buildings and stunning churches lined with intricate golden mosaics are your thing!

Flights & Airport Transfers

We flew into Palermo from London Gatwick; from the airport it is about a half hour ride into the middle of town. There is an Uber pick up spot, but we had our car transfer sorted out by our travel agents Original Travel (who were fantastic and did the bones of our trip for us, I just arranged the restaurants and a few additional excursions!) – in any city, I usually make sure we stay in a hotel who will arrange this for us in advance!

You can hire a car at the airport, but even if you plan on leaving Palermo after your stay to explore the rest of Sicily if you’re staying in Palermo itself I’d seriously recommend doing what we did, and collecting our car from the car hire in Palermo proper (we used Avis who are by the main train station) – driving in the middle of Palermo is what I’d describe as an experience so I’d recommend trying to cut down on driving in the town as little as possible, limiting yourself to simply driving out of it!

Driving in Sicily

Similar to in Naples, Sicilian drivers drive differently to drivers in the rest of Europe, or indeed in other parts of Italy. Both speed limits and traffic lights are considered as advisory by the locals, and parking can be a bit of a free-for-all with cars often left parked on zebra crossings. I only did a little bit of the driving but I was in the passenger seat for the rest of it and my main tips are to pay attention, get the person in the passenger seat to pay attention, and to not take it too personally the amount of times you’ll get hooted at for not going fast enough or trying to squeeze yourself into a small enough gap. At the start of the trip we thought we’d made a mistake getting a small 4×4 (an MG similar in size to my Range Rover Evoque) as we needed it for almost 2 weeks of luggage for 3 people, and it seemed too big for Palermo’s streets, but once we hit Marsala and discovered how badly Sicily’s rural roads cope in a thunderstorm, we were glad!

Where We Stayed

I’m not entirely sure why I don’t have any pictures of Palazzo Planeta, the apartments we stayed in but if you’re travelling as a couple I can highly recommend it if you’re able to book the penthouse with the private terrace. My parents stayed up there and it was a lovely room with a living room, small kitchen, and of course the terrace to read and eat on; on our last evening we got takeaway pizza and cracked open the free wine in our rooms (the family who own it also own a winery), but I found my apartment room lower down in the palazzo a bit dark and whilst clean and comfortable, a bit sad in comparison.

Private Palermo Walking Tour

There is so much to see in such a small, walkable city that I can highly recommend you book a private walking tour for your first day. Not all the activities I’ve mentioned below were on our 4 hour morning tour and I’ve flagged what was on which, (we spent another day in the city afterwards) but it was the perfect introduction to learn more about the main sights and to be told about the city, it’s history and it’s culture from a Palermo native. We felt that we learned so much more from her stories – seriously, Original Travel did fantastically finding Ambra who I can 110% recommend. You can send her a booking enquiry here.

Palazzo dei Normanni

The Norman Palace is worth a visit, the royal apartments have a room in them (see above) with some stunning mosaics that was once used as either a bed chamber or a dining room, but the real reason to visit the Palazzo dei Normanni is to visit the simply stunning 12th century Byzantine UNESCO Cappella Palatina (Palatine Chapel), pictured below with it’s intricate biblical mosaics and Arab-style Muqarnas ceiling. Honestly it was one of the most impressive things we saw in Sicily.

Queues are likely to visit the chapel (first outside the palace for tickets, and then actually inside the palace outside the chapel) but we did not find it too bad arriving around 10am on a Monday in May, before the tourist season properly starts. We did not have to queue for tickets (though there was a queue when we were leaving) and we only queued for about 35 minutes to get into the chapel itself. Go Friday-Monday to get the full experience (Sicily’s regional assembly sits in the apartments Tuesday-Thursday so they’re closed) and the ticket will be €19.00. If you buy online you can skip the ticket queue, not the chapel queue.

Palermo Cathedral

Palermo Cathedral is worth the walk around for it’s incredible blend of Norman, Gothic, Baroque, Neoclassical and also Islamic architecture; it really is representative of Sicily and Palermo in particular in that it is an island (and therefore city) that has been occupied by and has taken on a little bit of the culture of practically every people who have ever conquered anything in the Mediterranean over the centuries. It’s built on the site of the old mosque, using some of the original stone and a passage from the Quran is still present on one of the pillars by the main entrance; do also walk all around the building as it completely changes in character when you encounter the geometric part built by Muslim builders who were forbidden from representing people in their art.

In my opinion, the inside is less exciting with it’s 18th century interior, but it is worth slipping in as it is free to visit (unless you want to pay to go into the crypt, or onto the roof, but I’ve got a great place for views of the city for you below!) Ambra our guide took us inside and I’m glad she did otherwise we may not have known my favourite fact about the relics of Palermo’s patron Saint Rosalia, which are held within the gold casket pictured above. A 12th century Norman noblewoman descended from Charlemagne, she chose to become a hermit on Mount Pellegrino overlooking the city rather than marry her family’s choice of husband. The discovery of her bones in the 17th century appeared to have the effect of rescuing the city from plague, so she’s been invoked in times of pestilence since. Every year her bones are carried around the city in procession to protect against disease, and when this could not be done due to Covid, the Mayor instead flew them over the city in a helicopter!

Quattro Canti

More a meeting point in the old city rather than an attraction, do find the Quattro Canti, a crossroads where each season is represented by statues on the four corners, and at different times of the day a different panel of them is illuminated. But be careful; street vendors may have set up in the road but it is still a road so watch out, I had been standing still for over a minute and I was hit by a moped (!) I was thankfully fine!

Chiesa e Monastero di Santa Caterina d’Alessandria

We visited the Church and Monastery of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria on our guide Ambra’s recommendation that afternoon and it is seriously not to be missed. Get the full €10 ticket; first you’ll see one of the most beautiful churches for marble inlay and frescos I’ve ever seen (yes it was as impressive as the Cathedral in Siena) before taking the stairs through a few museum rooms to the roof where you’re treated to some fantastic views of Palermo sprawled out below.

From the roof you’ll also be able to see down into the monastery courtyard, a beautiful tiled rose garden with a fountain, and people sitting around eating pastries. We wrote the queue off as too long, but the kitchen there serves traditional Sicilian sweets made to traditional recipes potentially worth getting there early for; you can access the pastry shop without an entry ticket, so it might be worth catching it at a different time of day if you don’t want to miss it.

Antiques & Flea Market

If you happen to be in the city on a Sunday, and a good antique or flea market is your thing (even if you can’t really take much back with you!) visit the market on Piazza Marina between 8am-1pm. As well as the usual curiosities we came across some traditional Sicilian puppets (an old regional form of entertainment, not our thing but you can take in a traditional show in Palermo if you fancy) and in the park you can see the oldest ficus tree in Europe, which on paper does not sound that impressive, but is quite something to behold when you’re standing under it’s airborne roots flung out to support it’s sheer size.

Boat Trip

On our second day in Palermo Original Travel arranged for us to head out on a boat (which you can book here for €90 per person) around some of Palermo’s coast so we could look back at the coastline before dropping anchor to swim off the side of the boat in the Mediterranean at the beach resort town of Mondello, and enjoy some local wine and apero snacks (olives, sun-dried tomatoes, nuts, crackers and caponata crostini). The crew were lovely, and whilst the weather meant the ride out to Mondello was a bit choppy, we all throughly enjoyed and can recommend it, even those of us who did not like usually being out on the water. In May the water was freezing by the way, but in the sort of way that once you’re in it is actually very refreshing; I stayed in for a good 15 minutes and in the Sicilian sunshine it was not at all cold drying off on the deck afterwards.

Bars, Restaurants & Bakeries

This is a food website after all, so obviously where we ate in Palermo was one of the most important parts of our itinerary. When I wrote about the food of the city specifically for my newsletter, I noted what was particularly great about Palermo and Sicily in general is whilst there are set meal times for things, at any given time of the day there is a meal you could be eating, and it is up to you however and whichever you partake in through the day.

Antica Focacceria S Francesco

One of the highlights of our walking tour was being able to slip into the famous Palermo street food institution Antica Focacceria S Francesco who have been serving the city since the 19th century. Their speciality? Palermo’s signature spleen sandwich, made from boiled, compressed and sliced cow spleen, lung, and trachea fried in pork fat before being loaded into a soft bun with a spritz of lemon juice, with the choice of also adding shredded cheese and / or a slick of ricotta. It’s rich, indulgent, and very much like eating a slightly earthier, slightly chewier portion of liver. Honestly, I think this is something more visitors would love if they were not told what it was before trying it; it’s a snack eaten from breakfast through until dinner in Palermo, and is something you need to seek out if you’re not totally put off.

Farinelli

Via Maqueda, the main drag of old Palermo can be quite touristy and most of the restaurants and street food outlets there reflect this, but walking up and down it is soon obvious that there a few that are still a hit with the locals. We managed to snag a table outside Faranelli as we were a bit early for lunch, opting for a few spritz (Aperol and Hugo) and a selection of popular street food bites. The squares are chickpea fritters, a Palermo staple, made by cooking chickpea flour down like polenta, spreading it thin, then cutting it into slices to be fried. With a spritz of lemon ands a nice sprinkle of salt they were some of the best of these fritters we tried; also great were their arancini, smaller than others we’d tried elsewhere, filled with mozzarella and ham. Light, tender, indulgent and probably the best arancini we had all trip. And, the burrata caprese with pizza dough discard crackers was a reminder that Italian tomatoes will always be tastier than our home grown ones.

Seven Restaurant

Book Seven Restaurant (I mean it, you do need to book) on top of the Hotel Ambasciatori not just for their excellent modern Sicilian food, but for the wonderful sunset view – the above picture was from a cloudy day! Pictured below are my starter of octopus (perfectly cooked and tender) served on a bed of pureed lentils with candied tangerine, pickled onions, capers and wild fennel oil, and my pasta course cooked in a fava bean and wild fennel sauce, topped with a tartare of Mediterranean red prawns, served in their own chilled bisque. Elegant Sicilian flavours, with a fantastic location.

Terzo Cerchio Gelateria

Terzo Cerchio is an organic gelato shop on the Via Maqueda that is super busy, but does a super delicious lemon granita; Sicilian granita is slow churned for a smoother finish, and it really shows. Also don’t be surprised you pay for your order before getting your treat; it is the Sicilian way, to avoid the same hands handling dirty money as clean gelato and granita!

Salamino Pane & Vino

Salamino Pane & Vino was another of our guide Ambra’s brilliant recommendations, located at the bottom of Mercato Ballaro (more on that in a moment!) they do sandwiches and sharers to go with their extensive wine list. Go for the bruschetta – bruschetta in Sicily is not always tomato, here it was tomato, pistachio cream with parma ham, and pistachio pesto with ricotta and mortadella) – and the pinsa, a type of Roman flatbread we had with a typical Sicilian pizza topping of mozzarella, mortadella and pistachio pesto. Go for the mortadella alone; it puts the thin, metallic stuff we buy to shame.

Lo Scudiero

Lo Scudiero is a traditional trattoria with a focus on seafood; you need to book, but you should not have a problem securing a table at a Northern-European dinner time of say 7:30pm, rather than a Sicilian dinner time of 9pm. It is also worth noting they’re quite rigid about the order of an Italian meal: antipasto; pasta course; main course; dessert, so even though in lots of places they serve the food at different times to suit people around the table chopping and changing, here even if you’re the only one eating the pasta course, everyone else will have to sit there and watch you eat it!

The mixed fried seafood (fish, prawns) with chickpea fritters and gooey mozzarella pieces is a good sharer (though the fritters were nowhere near as good as those we had elsewhere) but the prawn and clam pasta with fried courgette was simply divine. The main draw of Lo Scudiero though is the catch of the day platter which is taken around the dining room (as is the dessert trolly) where you can choose for the fish to be pan fried, baked in a salt crust, or how we had our bass, baked with tomatoes, olives and capers. It was presented to us, whole and just cooked before it was whisked away to be portioned out. It was beautifully prepared, wonderfully fresh, and worth putting up with some of the restaurant’s other foibles for!

Panificio Bakery

As a general rule, if you’re sitting outside a corner bar in a residential neighbourhood sipping an Aperol Spritz and locals keep getting out their cars, vanishing down the street and coming back a few minutes later clutching a bag from the same bakery, you go and investigate. Panificio Bakery serves classic Sicilian biscuits; all quite simple, mostly flavoured with chocolate or pistachio, all not too hard, but also not too soft. The highlights of our selection were the red chocolate-filled version of the green (pistachio) sandwich cookies in the bottom left, with a slightly sponge-like biscuit (it reminded me of a slightly more structurally sound trifle sponge).

Mercato Ballaro

Palermo is famous for it’s street food (even more since Forbes named it as the best place for street food in Europe in 2012) and whilst the character of Palermo’s Mercato Ballaro has changed a little to reflect all the people coming to the city for street food since, the usual bakeries, fishmongers, butchers and fruit and vegetable vendors still stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the more ready-to-go options. It’s a super busy, bustling, loud, smoky street (especially on a Sunday where the locals usually have an impromptu DJ with their lunch!) but you’ll be missing out if you don’t at least walk down it, even without eating anything (which we didn’t, choosing an actual seat at Salamino Pane & Vino at the end!)

The fruit and vegetables would be a dream to anyone cooking in the city; look out for the cucuzza – the long, mild zucchini unique to Sicily we’ll eat together when I post about our Sicilian road trip once we leave Palermo behind) – and more importantly the tenerumi, pictured bottom right which are the leaves of the plant. They’re treated as a wild green, and later on in the trip we had them in the best bowl of vegetable soup any of us had ever eaten.

Whilst the long ropes of intestines cooked over coals are not something I could easily do at home, I’m currently working on the method for these big European salad onions wrapped with bacon.

Also something I want to give a go we saw at the market, but which was also for sale in lots of bakeries is Sicilian baked pasta; aneletti rings baked with a meat ragu which Ambra told us was a typical Sunday family dish. If you’re staying in an apartment in Palermo, you could do worse than to grab some of this to eat later!

Next up, we’ll be heading out of Palermo and hitting the road to explore Sicily’s West, South and East coasts. In the meantime, for more Italian-based adventures do check out my day-trip guides to Siena and Pisa!

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