Palermo in 3 days, on foot

This 3-day self-guided walking plan for Palermo covers 22 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 3 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Palermo rewards a detour.

Day 1

Morning

1. Palermo Cathedral: A magnificent Norman-Arab-Byzantine cathedral built in 1185, housing the royal tombs of Frederick II and Roger II of Sicily.
2. Palatine Chapel: The jewel of Norman Palermo: a 12th-century royal chapel covered floor to ceiling in golden Byzantine mosaics with an extraordinary Arab muqarnas ceiling.
3. Norman Palace: The oldest royal palace in Europe, built over Phoenician and Arab foundations, today housing the Sicilian Regional Parliament and the dazzling Palatine Chapel.
4. Ballarò Market: Palermo's oldest and most vibrant street market, where North African street-food culture meets Sicilian tradition in a cacophony of calls, colours, and aromas.

Afternoon

1. Quattro Canti: The theatrical Baroque crossroads at the heart of Palermo, where four concave facades decorated with fountains, statues of seasons, Spanish kings, and patron saints meet at a perfect octagon.
2. Fontana Pretoria: A magnificent 16th-century fountain of white Carrara marble featuring fifty nude mythological figures, so scandalous to locals that it became known as the Fountain of Shame.
3. La Martorana: A stunning 12th-century Norman church with original Byzantine gold mosaics, built on the minaret foundations of a converted mosque, featuring the oldest portrait of a Norman king.
4. San Giovanni degli Eremiti: An iconic Arab-Norman church with five distinctive red domes rising above a peaceful cloister garden, built on the site of a mosque using Arab craftsmen.

Day 2

Morning

1. Capuchin Catacombs: A haunting underground gallery of 8,000 mummified bodies displayed in their finest clothing, including the perfectly preserved "sleeping beauty" Rosalia Lombardo from 1920.
2. Teatro Massimo: Italy's largest opera house, a magnificent neoclassical temple to music built between 1875 and 1897, immortalised as the setting for the climactic final scene of The Godfather Part III.
3. Monreale Cathedral: The supreme masterpiece of Norman-Byzantine art: a 12th-century cathedral housing the world's largest Byzantine mosaic cycle, 6,340 square metres of glittering gold and colour telling the entire story of the Bible.
4. Vucciria Market: Palermo's historic medieval market, immortalised in Renato Guttuso's famous 1974 painting, now transformed into a legendary late-night street-food and aperitivo scene.

Afternoon

1. Palazzo Abatellis: A refined 15th-century Catalan-Gothic palace housing Sicily's greatest art museum, with Antonello da Messina's Annunciation and the monumental Triumph of Death fresco.
2. Oratorio del Rosario: A Baroque oratory decorated with the most extravagant stucco work in Sicily by Giacomo Serpotta, featuring Van Dyck's Madonna of the Rosary altarpiece.
3. Zisa Castle: A magnificent 12th-century Norman pleasure palace built in pure Islamic style, with the finest muqarnas fountain room outside the Arab world and gardens fed by water channels.
4. Botanical Garden: One of Europe's finest botanical gardens, founded in 1789, featuring ancient dragon trees, towering ficus trees, a Chinese garden, and over 12,000 plant species from around the world.

Day 3

Morning

1. Piazza Politeama: The elegant northern gateway of Palermo, centred on the grand neoclassical Teatro Politeama and marking the division between the historic Arab-Norman city and the 19th-century new town.
2. Mondello Beach: Palermo's beloved beach resort with fine white sand, turquoise water and Art Nouveau bathing establishments, framed by Monte Pellegrino and Monte Gallo.
3. Palermo Street Food: One of Europe's great street-food cities: arancini, panelle, sfincione, stigghiola, and cannoli, a culinary tradition shaped by Arab, Norman, Spanish, and Jewish influences over a thousand years.

Afternoon

1. Galleria d'Arte Moderna: Sicily's finest collection of 19th and early 20th-century art, housed in a beautifully converted former convent, revealing the rich Romantic and Realist tradition of Sicilian painting.
2. Cuba Palace: A remarkably preserved 12th-century Norman pleasure palace built in pure Islamic style, part of the same pleasure-garden complex as the Zisa, used by Boccaccio as a setting in the Decameron.
3. Palermo: Six Civilisations: Standing in Palermo means standing at the crossroads of 2,700 years of civilisation: Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman, and Spanish layers visible in one extraordinary city.

Full Palermo guide and all stops → · Other itineraries: 2 days