Seduced by Sicily: How Palermo Captured my Heart
2 min readWith Middle Eastern, North African, Spanish, Greek and Italian influences, Palermo, Sicily, is one of those places that captures your heart.
The post Seduced by Sicily: How Palermo Captured my Heart appeared first on JourneyWoman.
Chaotic, elegant and fascinating, Palermo takes me by surprise
by Carolyn Ray
It’s the classical music that catches my attention on the Via Cassaro, the oldest street in Palermo, Sicily. A crowd is gathering around a young piano player, as families, tourists and horse-drawn carriages mesh into a steady flow of traffic, merging with food carts and performers. I weave my way through the crowd to get a better view, enjoying all the vibrancy on the street.
Here, in Palermo’s old town, all this hustle and bustle make me feel like I’ve just stepped into a street party. It’s chaotic and noisy, but there’s something about it that captures my heart. There’s nothing artificial here, particularly in January, when there aren’t many tourists. A few steps off the main street, it’s easy to see buildings affected by heavy bombing in World War II. With its port, shipyards and proximity to North Africa, Palermo was the second most bombed city in southern Italy after Naples. Hundreds of historic buildings, including palaces and churches, suffered damage. In 2018, it emerged as an “Italian Capital of Culture”, and attracted about 1.2 million tourists in 2022, surpassing pre-pandemic numbers.
On each corner of the octagonal intersection around me, there are four separate buildings, each with its own impressive façade. Designed by the Romans, the Quattro Canti, or ‘four corners’, connects Palermo’s two main streets, the ancient Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the newer Via Maqueda. Each corner has a different feature: the first level has four Baroque fountains representing the four seasons. The second has statues of four Spanish kings. On the third level, the highest, are the four female patron saints of the city. Everywhere I look, it’s a mish-mash of Roman fountains, medieval churches and Phoenician, Baroque, Byzantine, Arab, Christian and Norman influences, making Palermo one of the most ancient and fascinating places in Europe.
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