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Few Mediterranean cities carry their history as visibly as Palermo. Phoenician traders founded it, the Romans took it, the Arabs transformed it into one of the most sophisticated cities in the medieval world, and then the Normans arrived and did something remarkable: they kept what they found. The result is a city whose architecture refuses to belong to a single civilisation. Byzantine mosaics gleam inside Norman chapels. Arab-influenced domes rise above streets that smell of frying street food and salt air blowing in off the Tyrrhenian Sea. Palermo is the capital of Sicily and has been shaped by that island identity, proud of its separateness from the Italian mainland and deeply conscious of the layers beneath its feet.

The old city is dense and walkable, organised loosely around the four historic quarters that meet at the Quattro Canti, the baroque crossroads at the centre of the ancient street grid. The Kalsa quarter, once the seat of Arab emirs, still has a slightly labyrinthine quality, its narrow lanes opening unexpectedly onto piazzas. The Ballarò market, one of the oldest in the city, runs through the Albergheria quarter and remains a genuine working market rather than a tourist performance, loud with vendors and piled with aubergines, swordfish, and spices that reflect the city's long trading history. Further north, the Vucciria quarter gave its name to a market that has quietened over the decades but whose surrounding streets have filled instead with bars and informal life after dark.