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1. Four Corners

The busy intersection of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Maqueda, known as the Four Corners, is the center of Palermo.

It is surrounded by a frame of curved facades that dissolve in a perfect perspective scheme to blue vault of heaven. It is also called Theatre of the Sun to the unusual effect of light that illuminates the facade of several buildings during the day.

Each of the Four Corners has overlapping, the three orders: Doric, Ionic and Composite. Pleasantly exhibitions of decorative windows and niches, balconies and broken eardrums the magnificent attic merger effected in architecture and sculpture. In the lower there are statues of four seasons, the average four Spanish monarchs, and in the top four Saints Palermo, each patron and symbol of the neighborhood who has behind him.

• Church of St. Catherine

  

  The eastern side of Piazza Pretoria is bounded by the Church of St. Catherine (Descent of Judges), the most beautiful baroque church of Palermo, which is open all year, including November 25, the feast of St. Catherine, when the public has to admire the solemn stucco, frescoes and precious by the soft pastel shades of lapis lazuli and amethyst encrusted altars.

• The Church of San Cataldo and Martorana

  

  The most famous medieval church is La Martorana in Palermo (Church of St. Mary's, Piazza Bellini 3). Built in the twelfth century, the Martorana was designed as a mosque. The delicate capitals, each bearing the name of Allah support the domed ceiling decorated with a representation of Christ on the throne surrounded by Archangels.

  If the Martorana has retained its beautiful interior decorations, the Church of San Cataldo, the pink dome, but is almost completely pastry. Founded around 1950, the church was not completed by the killing of its founder, which explains the lack of decoration inside. The element of greatest interest, however, is the external structure, perfect blend of Arabic and Norman styles.

• Piazza Pretoria

  

  To the south-east of Pretoria is Piazza Quattro Canti, a riot of churches and majestic buildings that surround the prodigious Fontana Pretoria.

  The fountain dominates the square with its many levels which slope down in concentric circles on which crowd naked nymphs, tritons and deities represented in the most diverse and unusual poses.

  The fountain, which was bought by the city of Palermo in 1573 and located in front of the Praetorian Palace, aroused the outraged reaction of the faithful who attended the Church of St. Joseph of Theatines (southwest corner of Four Corners) because of the realistic nudes statues of pagan gods. For this he was nicknamed the Fountain of Shame. The eastern side of the square is bordered by the Church of St. Catherine (Descent of Judges), the most beautiful baroque church in Palermo, but remains closed throughout the year, except November 25, the feast of St. Catherine, when the public has to admire the solemn stucco, frescoes and precious by the soft pastel shades of lapis lazuli and amethyst encrusted altars.

2. Palaces

Once inhabited by the Norman court officials, the 'palaces is now a poor neighborhood where he lives and run down an increasingly large community of illegal immigrants who enliven the streets with their hopes and their homesickness. This is also the market of Ballarò the liveliest of Palermo.

• Palatine Chapel

  

  For the grand staircase, located a short distance from the gallery with three rows, we reach the first floor where there is the chief artistic treasure of Palermo, the Palatine Chapel (8:30-12, 14-17, Monday to Saturday, 8 :30-12: 30 Sundays and holidays), that the same Roger II planned in 1130.

  With the interior completely covered with fine marble and exquisite mosaics, the Chapel is a magnificent example of art at the highest levels. The mosaics, incredibly sophisticated, catch phrases, details and movements with extraordinary grace and delicacy.

  The main theme of the mosaic representations are the stories of the Old Testament, but other scenes recall the role of Palermo in the Crusades, a reference full of irony, considering that the decorations of the chapel were created by Muslim artists. The wooden ceiling muqarnas (stalactite) - the only Christian in a church-is a masterpiece of inlaid honeycomb.

• Church of St. John of the Hermits

  

  Just south of the Palace of the Normans, the Church of St. John of the Hermits (info 0916515019, Benedictine Way) is the most famous architectural evidence of the merger between Palermo and the Norman Arab style.

  Built during the reign of Roger II, is surmounted by cupolas 5 red and framed by a lovely garden with trees and cloisters that offer a quiet retreat from the confusion that reigns outside.

• Palace of the Normans

  

  Further west, along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, after passing the Victory Square, decorated with tall palm trees, you arrive in the vicinity of the massive complex of the Norman Palace (Palazzo Reale, reservations 0917051111, 0917056001).

  An ancient center of a magnificent medieval court is now home to the Sicilian Regional Assembly. By participating in the guided tour you will be led through the hall where the Assembly meets, and the solemn room of Roger II, Norman King's bedroom where some of the very few non-religious themed mosaics era play still the walls.

• New Gate

  

  Close to the Palace of the Normans is located Porta Nuova, built in 1535 to celebrate the arrival of Charles V, who was part victory in Palermo after the defeat inflicted on the Tunisians.

  It 'was for many centuries the most important entrance to Palermo to land. From Porta Nuova, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which reaches the sea at Port Felix.

3. The Chief

Bordering the palaces, the Head is also characterized by a dense network of narrow streets and blind alleys. In this neighborhood, one of the poorest in the Sicilian capital, is an important street market, the Mercato del Capo, which extends along the entire route Augustine.

Core of the neighborhood is the important monastery of the Church of St. Augustine, who ruled the region during the Middle Ages.

• Cathedral

  

  Able and ambitious builders, the Normans became mosques and palaces, giving rise to the Arab-Norman style, which is a peculiar element of the architectural heritage of Sicily.

  The most significant testimony of this style is undoubtedly the Cathedral (Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 9:30 to 17:30 from Monday to Saturday, 12:30 to 17:30 Sunday and holidays), an extraordinary triumph of battlements, domes covered with tiles , decorated with geometric motifs and blind arches.

  Set back from the road is preceded by a garden of palm trees, Cathedral baffles and confuses the clear Arabic influences that affect the eye.

  The construction of the Cathedral began in 1184 on commission from the archbishop Gualtiero Offamilio, then archbishop of Palermo, who wished to challenge the supremacy of the Cathedral of Monreale.

  Despite its size impressive, the interior has a Latin cross with three naves separated by pillars, is unusually sober. At the beginning of the aisle are the tombs of imperial or royal, including those of the two greatest monarchs in the history of Sicily, Roger II and Frederick II of Swabia. Instill the nave, on the right of the presbytery is the chapel Santa Rosalia, who guards the precious silver urn with the relics of the saint, one of the patron saint of Palermo.

4. Kalsa

Torn apart by poverty and degradation, the Kalsa is one of the most notorious of the city where - at least until a few years ago - the visitors were advised not to venture after dark. Mother Teresa, who was able to touch the lamentable fact, I even opened a mission.

And it is in the Square, which is the Church of Kalza S. Teresa with its impressive view facing the sea.

• Regional Gallery

  

  In Via Alloro hides Palermo's most beautiful museum, the magnificent Regional Gallery (info 091 6230011; Via Alloro 4), rich in treasures and paintings dating from between the Middle Ages and the eighteenth century.

  The building itself is a gorgeous Gothic-Catalan, after the severe damage suffered during the Second World War, in 1957, was undergoing renovations and transformed into an exhibition under the supervision of Carlo Scarpa, one of the most distinguished architects and Italian designers of the period.

  The gallery allows you to observe some of the finest examples of Sicilian painting and counts among his most significant pieces, the famous Triumph of Death. In the painting, Death is an archer on horseback, which affects the rich and notables while the poor, the cripples and beggars, among which are portraits of the painter and his pupil, are spared. Work has been given an entire room.

  Among the other treasures of the gallery include a door frame of the Arab of the twelfth century and the famous table of the Annunciation by Antonello da Messina. Messina's work can be seen along with sculptures of Francesco Laurana, among which the exquisite bust of Eleanor of Aragon, displayed in room 4.

• Piazza Saint Francis of Assisi

  

  Piazza Saint Francis of Assisi, the most typical picture-postcard glimpse of the Sicilian capital, is dominated by the impressive Church of St. Francis of Assisi, where there is a beautiful rose window and the elaborate Flamboyant Gothic portal.

  High demand for the celebration of marriages, the church has, as most significant, the arch of the back door entrance to the church in the chapel of Family Mastrantonio, sculpted in 1468 by Francesco Laurana and Pietro da Bonitate, which is one of Rare expressions of Renaissance art present in Palermo. Inside the church there are also sculptures of Gagini (father and son), by Giovanni Battista and James Ragusa Serpotta

  Nearby is another of the original speakers from stucco Serpotta 's Oratory of San Lorenzo (dell'Imacolatella Street), built in 1569 by the Society of St. Francis. You can see a series of panels depicting the life of San Lorenzo and San Francesco.

5. Vucciria

The network of roads neglected Vucciria shows the gap between rich and poor, of medieval memory, which has characterized the Sicilian society up to the years around 1950.

At one time, the heart of Palermo in the grip of poverty and crime hotbed of town, the Vucciria market has always been a noisy and crowded place full of street vendors, animal carcasses exposed in plain sight and fields of fruit and vegetables.

The views of this market have inspired the most important work of the painter Renato Guttuso The Vucciria (1974).

• Church of San Domenico

  

  About 200 m south-east of the museum, is the Church of San Domenico (091,584,872; Piazza San Domenico), built in 1640 by architect Andrea Cirincione.

  The facade was added in 1726 after the front of buildings were demolished to provide more space for the church. San Domenico serves as the Pantheon of the town and home Tomb and cenotaphs of famous Sicilians, including that of Francesco Crispi, twice prime minister between 1890 and 1896.

  But the real treasure of the church is the 'Oratory of the Rosary by St. Dominic (Via Bambinai 2, on the back of the church of San Domenico), which together with the nearby Oratorio del Rosario di Santa Zita (Via Valverde 3) contains some fine stucco James Serpotta.

• Regional Archaeological Museum

  

  One of its kind in Europe's most important museums, the magnificent Regional Archaeological Museum (info 0916116805; Via Bara all'Olivella 24) houses a vast collection.

  Among the most valuable pieces include a number of Phoenician sarcophagi (fifth century BC.), A collection of ten thousand pieces of Etruscan, Greek temples discovered the metopes of Selinunte, the bronze ram from Syracuse, the largest collection world of ancient anchors and artifacts unearthed in archaeological sites across the island.

  The most interesting rooms of the museum are without doubt those at the rear of the cloister. Here were placed the massive Gorgon's head (570 BC) from the Temple C of Selinunte and nineteen lion heads that formed the jets of a fountain found at the Temple of the victory at Himera. Continuing, we arrive at the hall of Selinunte, which collects suits the metopes of the seven Greek temples in Selinunte discovered. The series represents different scenes, including Hercules fights with Amazon, the marriage of Zeus and Hera, Athena and the Titan. The upper floor comprises a series of rooms that collect delicate painted pottery and a rare collection of Etruscan mirrors.

6. Marina Square

Moving away from Palazzo on Via IV April Abbatellis reach the Marina and its beautiful Piazza Garibaldi small garden.

Surrounded on all sides by elegant buildings, this square is the quietest of Palermo.
Inside the garden is home to a specimen of Ficus benjamina than 150 years (it is the oldest tree in the city) from the stem which rises to a height of nearly 25 meters.

Dedicated to the figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the square was once the scene of bullfights and executions, a fact which is not surprising, considering that the most impressive, the fourteenth-century Palazzo Chiaramonte (info 091 334 139, Marina Square 61), also known as Steri, was the headquarters of the Inquisition.

Today it houses the central offices of the Rectorate and the University of Palermo and is only open for special exhibitions.

• Palazzo Mirto

  

  A short distance from the square is one of the few buildings open to the public, Palazzo Mirto (info 091 6167541; Via Merlo 2).

  Inside, the walls are covered with silk velvet upholstery on which stand large tapestry, while the floors are the result of an imaginative combination of polychrome marble and mosaic work.

  The most characteristic and yet the Chinese parlor, filled with objects in black lacquer with silk wall coverings and a ceiling decorated with a representation in which a rather unusual group of European aristocrats notes from the room.

• Steps and Piazza Magione Spasimo

  

  Behind the Regional Gallery is located the complex of Santa Maria, or spasm (info 091 6161486; Way of Torment 13), only in Sicily late Gothic structure characterized by an elegant polygonal apse and a slender nave, however, for centuries, remained homeless.

  The building was built by Jerome Basilicò on his return from a trip to the Holy Land in early 1500. Some time later Basilicò commissioned Raphael to the creation of an altarpiece for the altar of the Church, the agony of Sicily. Unfortunately the work is no longer visible: it was brought to Madrid (now exhibited at the Museo del Prado) by the Viceroy of Ferdinand Ayala.

  The complex of Santa Maria is one of the Torment of the flagship program of recovery and restoration of artistic and architectural heritage of Palermo. Reopened in 1995, is today a wonderful setting in which you play concerts, shows and cultural events.

  On the opposite side of Piazza Magione compared to Torment is the Church of the Mansion (info 091 6170596; Street Mansion 44), a splendid example of the more austere Romanesque style introduced for the first time in Sicily by the Normans.

7. Palermo XIX century

North of Piazza Giuseppe Verdi, Palermo takes on a less neglected.

Here, in the modern city fruit of nineteenth-century urban development, you can see several buildings that date back to the period in which the liberty and the neoclassical style dominated the scene.

Particularly significant are the Teatro Massimo and the smallest Politeama Theatre.

• Teatro Massimo

  

  Built between 1875 and 1897 by Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile - who would succeed him as director of the work his son Ernesto - to celebrate the successful unification of Italy, the Teatro Massimo (info 0916053111; Piazza Giuseppe Verdi's toll-free ticket booking 800655858; www.teatromassimo.it; reservations 0916090831) has become the symbol of the triumphs and tragedies that have always characterized the events of Palermo.

  Its long history is symptomatic of the power struggles and struggles for supremacy that has scarred the company of Palermo, where civic pride and cultural creativity have collided with the left against the shadow of a bureaucracy Pirandello and the long tentacles of the Mafia .

• Politeama Theatre

  

  The second theater of Palermo in size was designed in classic style by Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda between 1867 and 1874, the Politeama Garibaldi (Piazza Ruggero VII reservations 0916053315) presents a stunning facade that resembles a triumphal arch surmounted by a bronze chariots . At the theater is the Gallery of Modern Art (info 091588951; access from Via Turati 7) founded in 1910, which houses a collection of modern art and contemporary Italian.

8. Outside the city center

There are two attractions located outside the central area: the Zisa Castle and the Convent of the Capuchins.

• Zisa Castle

  

  Travelling by bus or by car a short distance southwest of Piazza Castelnuovo, we arrive at the Zisa Castle (info 0916520269; near Piazza Zisa) one of the few remaining monuments in Palermo to witness the period of Arab domination. With times and stalactites, latticed windows, fountains and even a room specially designed to protect the emir and his family from the hot African wind the sirocco, the villa is without doubt leading up to its name, since the term " ziza "comes from the Arabic al aziz, which means" magnificent ".

  Today it houses a museum of handicrafts Arabic, whose most valuable pieces are grateful to the wood flooring and a wonderful bronze basin of the XII.

• Capuchin Catacombs and

  

  More than the valuable collection of manuscripts and the tomb of the writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in the cemetery adjoining the Convent of the Capuchins (info 091212117; Piazza Cappuccini) is best known for the spectacle of singular and rather macabre offered its Catacombs, where contains the mummified bodies of some eight thousand dead Palermo between the XVII and XIX.

9. Near Palermo

As engaging and exciting, a visit to Palermo can be very tiring, and nothing like a day away from its hustle and bustle from its is able to regenerate body and mind.

Even places that gravitate around the Sicilian capital have very deep historical roots, to be found in cave paintings in the cave or dell'Addaura Sanctuary of Santa Rosalia, originally a place of pagan worship.

More recently, the history of various cities, such as Corleone, the Mafia has been characterized. But the attraction par excellence is the Cathedral of Monreale, the more glorious testimony to the golden age of medieval Sicily.

• Mondello

  

  On the leeward side of Mount Pellegrino stands the beautiful and famous Mondello beach resort full of young Palermo, colorful leisure facilities and people enjoying a walk along the seafront.

  Originally unhealthy port village plagued by malaria, Mondello enjoyed its first heyday in the nineteenth century, when the swimmers went on holiday on the beach in a carriage. In this period was built the magnificent Liberty pier overlooking the sea where now flourish along the many private beach facilities, including the Charleston. If you prefer you can try a more sophisticated, inside, one of the finest restaurants in all of Sicily housed in a large Art Nouveau building with a large terrace that overhangs the sea.

• Monreale

  

  Located 8 km south-west of Palermo, the construction of the Cathedral of Monreale was commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II, who to emulate the artistic patronage of the famous grandfather Roger II - who enriched the architectural heritage with the Cathedral of Cefalu in Sicily and Palatine Chapel - wanted to create an unprecedented building. Thus arose the cathedral of Monreale, considered the greatest testimony of Norman architecture in Sicily.

  The interior is one of the highest artistic expressions of the Middle Ages in Sicily. A succession of glittering golden mosaics depicting scenes from the Old Testament from the Creation to the Assumption of the Virgin, for a total of 42 different episodes. The presence of the Byzantine style, despite the work of local artists and Venetian, is present everywhere.

  Outside the cathedral is the entrance to the cloister, which bears witness to the passion for the art of William Arabic. The elegant Romanesque arches supported by slender columns are decorated with beautiful mosaic patterns. The capitals are all different from each other, and that of the nineteenth column of the western side of the porch, is portrayed William II offering the cathedral to the Virgin Mary.

  To reach Monreale from Palermo take a city bus that will leave Independence Square in front of the Church in Cathedral Square.

• Solunto

  

  About 20 km east of Palermo are the ruins of the city greek-Roman Solunto (091 904557).

  Although the ancient city has been only partially excavated, it is worth to see the ruins because of their unique position along the slopes of Mount Catalfano.

  The city was founded in the fourth century BC on the site of an earlier Phoenician settlement. Walking along the ancient Decumanus (main street) and make some deviation of the Roman Empire through the steep cobbled side streets to see the houses in ruins, some still with original mosaic floors. To admire in particular the scene of Leda and the house for his interesting mosaic floor.

• Ustica

  

  About 60 km north of Palermo is Ustica, a paradise for diving enthusiasts. This small island is part of the volcanic chain, and wind is the summit of a submerged volcano. As a result the waters that bathe the fish and coral abound and are always very clean thanks to the parts generated by a current that enters the Atlantic by the Strait of Gibraltar.