Palermo, the capital of Sicily, spreads around a bay on the north coast below Monte Pellegrino. It was an Arab city before it became the capital of the Norman kingdom of Sicily, and the Norman kings of the 12th century left its finest monuments, built by Arab and Byzantine craftsmen: seven of them, with the cathedral of Monreale on the hill above, form the UNESCO site of Arab-Norman Palermo.
This page covers ten experiences: the mosaics of the Palatine Chapel and Monreale, the royal tombs and roofs of the cathedral, the Martorana and San Cataldo, the Capuchin catacombs, a tour of Teatro Massimo, the Zisa palace, street food at Ballarò, the cave sanctuary of Santa Rosalia on Monte Pellegrino and the beach at Mondello.
Look up at the gold and the muqarnas of the Palatine Chapel
Cappella Palatina, Palazzo dei Normanni
1 to 2 hoursBook ahead
Gold mosaics with Christ in the dome, and above the nave the earliest surviving wooden honeycomb ceiling, painted with dancers and drinkers.
What it is
The royal chapel of the Norman kings sits inside the Palazzo dei Normanni. Roger II commissioned it in 1132 over an older chapel of about 1080, now the crypt, and Byzantine artists covered it in gold mosaics from the 1140s, with Christ Pantokrator in the dome surrounded by angels, prophets and saints. Then look up at the nave. Its wooden muqarnas ceiling, a honeycomb of carved and painted cells, is the earliest surviving one made of wood, most likely the work of craftsmen from the Fatimid world, and it is painted with dancers, drinkers, musicians, hunts and animals, and two crowned rulers.
How to do it
Tickets cost €15.50 or €19, the dearer one including the Royal Palace, whose rooms close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Good to know
The chapel opens Monday to Saturday 8:30 to 16:30 and Sundays and holidays 8:30 to 12:30.
Time needed
1 to 2 hours
Best time
At 8:30 from Monday to Saturday; Sundays it closes at 12:30
Take the bus up to Monreale for 6,500 square metres of mosaics
Duomo di Monreale
Half a day from PalermoNo booking needed
A cathedral lined with glass mosaics in Byzantine style, beside a cloister of 216 paired white marble columns.
What it is
The cathedral of Monreale, begun in 1174 by William II, holds some 6,500 square metres of glass mosaics, made in Byzantine style by local and Venetian masters between the late 12th and the mid 13th centuries. Legend says William fell asleep under a carob tree while hunting here, dreamed that the Virgin asked for a church on the spot, and that gold coins turned up in the tree's roots when the land was cleared. Look for the bronze doors of the side portal, cast by Barisano da Trani in 1179, and the porphyry tomb of William I, the founder's father. Next door, the cloister has 216 white marble columns in pairs, plain and decorated in turn.
How to do it
Monreale is on the hill about 8 km from Palermo. The cathedral is free; the cloister costs €8, free on the first Sunday of the month.
Good to know
Coin-operated lights, €2 a minute, light up the mosaics.
Time needed
Half a day from Palermo
Best time
A weekday morning from 9:00, with time for the cloister
Walk the cathedral roofs and see the tombs of Sicily's kings
Cattedrale di Palermo
1 to 2 hoursBook ahead
Porphyry tombs of Roger II and Frederick II, a gold crown found in 1491 and a walk across the roofs beside the dome.
What it is
Palermo Cathedral was built in 1185 by Walter Ophamil, the Norman archbishop and minister of William II, on the site of a Byzantine basilica that the Arabs had made a mosque. Its look is a stack of ages, ending with the neoclassical interior and the dome added by Ferdinando Fuga between 1781 and 1801. The ticketed monumental area holds the porphyry tombs of Roger II, the first king of Sicily, his daughter Constance, her husband Henry VI and their son Frederick II; the treasury, with the gold crown found in the tomb of Constance of Aragon in 1491; the crypt; and the walk across the roofs beside the dome.
How to do it
The church itself is free; the ticketed monumental area is the reason to plan, with tickets from €1 to €18.
Good to know
The area opens Monday to Friday 9:30 to 14:30, Saturday 9:30 to 18:00 and Sunday 9:00 to 13:00.
Time needed
1 to 2 hours
Best time
A Saturday, when the monumental area stays open until 18:00
A Norman king shown taking his crown from Christ himself, not the Pope, and next door three red domes over bare stone.
What it is
The Martorana, or Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, was founded under a charter of 1143 by George of Antioch, the Syrian Christian admiral of Roger II. One of its mosaics shows Roger in Byzantine dress being crowned by Christ himself, not by the Pope, with his name in Greek letters; another shows George at the feet of the Virgin. The nickname comes from the convent founded beside it by Eloisa Martorana in the 1190s, whose nuns made the marzipan fruit still sold in Palermo as frutta di Martorana. Since 1937 the church has used the Byzantine rite of the Italo-Albanian community. Next door, San Cataldo, from 1154, has three red domes and bare stone walls inside.
How to do it
Two Norman churches stand side by side on Piazza Bellini.
Good to know
The Martorana opens Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 13:00 for €2; San Cataldo opens daily for €2.50.
Time needed
1 hour for both
Best time
A weekday morning; the Martorana opens 10:00 to 13:00
Face 8,000 of Palermo's dead in the Capuchin catacombs
Catacombe dei Cappuccini
1 hourNo booking needed
Corridors lined with the dead in their clothes, sorted by men, women, virgins, children, priests and professionals.
What it is
In the 16th century the Capuchin friars of Palermo outgrew their cemetery and dug crypts below the monastery. In 1599 they mummified one of their own, Brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and placed him there, and over the following centuries thousands more joined him. About 8,000 bodies and 1,252 mummies, counted in 2011, line the corridors in their clothes, sorted into sections for men, women, virgins, children, priests and professionals. The catacombs were officially closed in 1880, but burials went on until 1939. The best known body is Rosalia Lombardo, a girl of nearly two who died in 1920, preserved by Professor Alfredo Salafia and still remarkably intact; she now lies in a sealed glass case filled with nitrogen.
How to do it
It opens daily 9:00 to 12:30 and 15:00 to 17:30, and costs €5.
A horseshoe hall of seven tiers of boxes, shut for 23 years, where the final scenes of The Godfather Part III were filmed.
What it is
Teatro Massimo is the largest theatre in Italy, and when it opened on 16 May 1897 with Verdi's Falstaff it was the third largest opera house in Europe, after Paris and Vienna. Giovan Battista Filippo Basile designed it in a neoclassical style inspired by Sicily's ancient temples, and his son Ernesto finished it after his death in 1891. In 1974 it closed for safety works that ran into cost overruns, corruption and political fights and lasted 23 years, until it reopened on 12 May 1997, four days before its centenary. The final scenes of The Godfather Part III were filmed here.
How to do it
Guided tours take you into the horseshoe hall, with 1,381 seats and seven tiers of boxes.
Good to know
They run daily from 9:30 to 18:00 for €12, or €17 with Palazzo Butera on a three-day ticket.
Feel the old air cooling of the Zisa, the Normans' summer palace
Castello della Zisa
1 hourNo booking needed
A Norman summer palace cooled by thick walls, small windows and water running through open channels into the main hall.
What it is
The Zisa was a summer palace for the Norman kings, begun around 1165 by Arab craftsmen for William I and finished in 1189 under William II. It stood in Genoardo, a royal hunting park named from the Arabic for earthly paradise. The name Zisa comes from the Arabic al-Aziza, the splendid one, a word still written over the entrance. It was built for the Palermo summer: thick walls and small windows kept the inside temperature steady, and a pool in front sent water through open channels into the main hall, where air moved through the whole building.
How to do it
It opens Tuesday to Saturday 9:00 to 18:30 and Sunday 9:00 to 13:00; tickets cost €8, free on the first Sunday of the month if you book on coopculture.it.
Good to know
Look for the muqarnas in its niches: all the muqarnas left in Italy are in Palermo, most of them here and in the Palatine Chapel.
Chickpea fritters in a sesame roll with lemon, and a bun of fried spleen, married with cheese or single with nothing.
What it is
Ballarò is the busy food market of the Albergheria quarter, near Piazza del Carmine. Between the fish, fruit and vegetable stalls are the counters of Palermo's street food. Panelle are fritters of chickpea flour with salt, pepper and chopped parsley, eaten in a sesame roll as pane e panelle with a squeeze of lemon. Pani câ meusa, panino con la milza in Italian, is a soft sesame bun, the vastedda, filled with veal lung and spleen boiled and then fried in lard. It is said to have been created by Jewish butchers in Palermo, and the vendors who sell it, the meusari, work in the main markets.
How to do it
Ask for it maritatu, married, with caciocavallo or ricotta, or schettu, single, with nothing.
Good to know
The market is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to Saturday from 7:00 to 20:00 and on Wednesday until 13:00.
Time needed
1 to 2 hours
Best time
A morning; on Wednesdays the market closes at 13:00
Climb Monte Pellegrino to Santa Rosalia's cave sanctuary
Santuario di Santa Rosalia, Monte Pellegrino
Half a dayFree
A cave near the top of a 606-metre headland, where a hermit died in 1166 and water still drips from the rock.
What it is
Monte Pellegrino, 606 metres high, is the limestone headland that closes Palermo to the north; Goethe called it the most beautiful promontory in the world in his Italian Journey. Near the top is the cave where Rosalia, a hermit from a Norman noble family, died in 1166. In 1624, with plague in the city, she is said to have appeared to a sick woman and then a hunter and shown where her bones lay; after they were carried in procession, the plague ended, and Rosalia became the city's patron saint. The cave, about 25 metres deep, became the sanctuary, and metal channels on its rock ceiling still collect the water that drips through, held by the faithful to be holy. Van Dyck, stuck in Palermo during the quarantine, painted her five times.
How to do it
The sanctuary is free.
Good to know
It opens daily 8:00 to 18:00, 19:00 in summer time.
Time needed
Half a day
Best time
A clear late afternoon, before the 18:00 closing (19:00 in summer time)
Swim at Mondello, Palermo's beach between two mountains
Mondello
Half a dayNo booking needed
A sandy bay of about 1.5 km between two headland nature reserves, with Liberty style villas lining the seafront.
What it is
Mondello is Palermo's beach district, on a sandy bay of about 1.5 km closed by Monte Pellegrino to the southeast and Monte Gallo to the northwest, with rocks at both ends. For centuries it was not a resort: Muslim sailors called its little port Marsa at-Tin, the port of mud, for the marsh of Valdesi behind the shore, and in the 15th century a tuna fishery was built here, guarded by towers against pirates. Only after the marsh was drained did the beach grow. Both headlands are nature reserves, Monte Pellegrino since 1996 and Capo Gallo since 2001.
How to do it
AMAT bus 806 runs from the city.
Good to know
In the early 20th century the architects of the Palermo modernist school, Ernesto Basile and his students, lined the seafront with Liberty style villas that are still worth a walk.
Palermo airport is at Punta Raisi, 32 km west of the city. Trains run from the airport to Palermo Centrale in just under an hour, and Prestia e Comandè buses leave every half hour, on the hour and at half past. Ferries link the port with Genoa, Civitavecchia, Naples and Cagliari, and overnight trains come from Rome, Naples and Milan, crossing the Strait of Messina on the train ferry.
Getting around
The old centre, between the Palazzo dei Normanni, the cathedral, the Quattro Canti and the markets, is best seen on foot. For the rest, AMAT city buses sell a 24-hour ticket for €4. Bus 109 runs from the central station to Piazza Indipendenza, where bus 389 leaves for Monreale, and bus 806 goes to Mondello.
Plan around opening hours
Sundays are short: the Palatine Chapel closes at 12:30, and the Zisa, the Monreale cloister and the cathedral's monumental area at 13:00, while Monreale cathedral opens to visitors only in the afternoon. The royal rooms of the Palazzo dei Normanni are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, though the chapel stays open. The city publishes a list of opening hours and prices, last updated on 12 November 2025.
Questions travellers ask
Can you visit the Palatine Chapel on a Tuesday or Wednesday?
Yes. On the city's list the chapel opens Monday to Saturday from 8:30 to 16:30 and on Sundays and holidays from 8:30 to 12:30. Only the rooms of the Royal Palace are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tickets cost €15.50 or €19 and are sold at federicosecondoonline.tm.vivaticket.com.
How do you get to Monreale from Palermo?
Take AMAT bus 389 from Piazza Indipendenza, which you reach from the central station on bus 109. Monreale is on the hill about 8 km from the centre. The cathedral is free, Monday to Saturday 9:00 to 12:45 and 14:00 to 16:45 and Sundays 14:00 to 17:00; the cloister costs €8.
Can you take photos in the Capuchin catacombs?
No, photography is not allowed inside. The catacombs open every day from 9:00 to 12:30 and from 15:00 to 17:30, and entry costs €5. Keep in mind that the corridors are lined with real mummified bodies, so think about it before taking children.
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