Gillian Knows Best guide to Palermo
15+addresses for sweet cannoli, dazzling mosaics & a contemplative crypt
I kept expecting the chaos. Everyone I told about our trip to the capital city of Sicily said the same thing. Cautioning us with wide eyed tales of wild traffic and general confusion. I love Rome and Naples so thought, ok, I know what this will be like. We dropped the rental car off at the airport and took a taxi into town so we didn’t have to drive or park in the city.1 We checked into the hotel and immediately dove right in. It was almost sunset so we started with a long walk down the via Vittorio Emmanuele past the Quattro Canti towards the water to the Porte Felice and then we turned back and walked along buzzy Via Maqueda and stopped for a drink at one of the bars. I don’t remember which one. A negroni and potato chips are good pretty much anywhere. What I didn’t find was all of that warned about chaos. I found an elegant very much alive city2 that also reminded me of a New York City that existed before Soho and Times Square became bland shopping malls.
By the time we got to Palermo I was tired. We had been traveling for almost three weeks. There was still no news on the start of work on our house in Venice. I was tired of eating in restaurants and sleeping in a different bed every few days. I didn’t do much research and planned almost nothing. This worked out fine because we were visiting in late February early March. If you are traveling an any other time of year I suggest you plan and book as much as you can. Here is is my advice for what to do in Palermo.
