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Palermo does not have a list of ten famous things. It has about forty half-famous things, most of which are better than they sound.
Here is what I would actually do, in the order I would do it. The wider planning is in my complete guide to Palermo.
What to book before you come
Palermo is a walking city and a market city, and almost all of the list below is done on foot for nothing. Two things are worth arranging: the one room you should not risk missing, and the day you leave the city entirely.
- The Norman Palace and the Palatine Chapel, with tickets. The chapel is the single most extraordinary interior in Sicily and access is restricted by what is happening in the palace above it, which is still a working seat of government. Timed entry removes the risk of arriving on a day it is shut to visitors. 4.8 from three hundred and forty people.
- Zingaro, Scopello and San Vito Lo Capo by boat. The best day out of Palermo, and a long one at ten hours. The Zingaro reserve coast is the clear water everyone imagines when they imagine Sicily, and reaching it by land means a lot of driving and a car park.
- A shorter boat afternoon, with snorkelling. Four hours instead of ten, for when you have already given the city three days and simply want to be in the sea. Rated 4.9.
The markets, the cathedral, the Quattro Canti and the evening on the Foro Italico cost nothing at all.
1. The royal chapel, first thing
Go at opening. It closes at short notice for official business and this is the one thing in Palermo you cannot afford to leave until tomorrow.
Around nineteen euros, forty minutes minimum, and it is the most remarkable interior in Sicily. Full detail in my guide to the Cappella Palatina and the Norman Palace.
2. A market, in the morning
Il Capo or Ballarò. Not Vucciria before dark.
Eat standing up: panelle, an arancina, sfincione from whoever has the queue. This is not a side activity, it is one of the two reasons to come to Palermo. The full account is in Palermo street food and the markets.
3. The cathedral, from outside
The interior was neoclassicised in the eighteenth century and is honestly a bit cold. The exterior is extraordinary.
Walk round to the apse end and look at the blind arcading, the interlacing pointed arches, the inlaid stone patterning. That is Arab-Norman work, and it is the best surviving stretch of it on the building. There is a small charge for the roof terraces and the royal tombs.
4. The cloisters
Palermo has several and they are the calmest places in the city.
The one at San Giovanni degli Eremiti, with its red domes and its garden, is the best known and the most photographed. The cloister at Monreale is on another scale entirely and gets its own trip, in Monreale from Palermo.
Go into one in the middle of the afternoon, when the streets are unbearable and the arcade is twenty degrees cooler.
5. La Martorana
A twelfth century church on Piazza Bellini with Greek mosaics as good as anything in the royal chapel, in a much smaller room, usually with almost nobody in it.
Two euros or thereabouts. Twenty minutes. If the chapel is closed the day you are here, this is the substitute that actually works.
6. The opera house
The Teatro Massimo is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in Europe, and the guided tour is genuinely good.
A single ticket is around nineteen euros, and there is a combined ticket with Palazzo Butera which was seventeen euros until the end of June 2026 and nineteen after that. Tours run through the day in several languages and take about half an hour.
If there is a performance while you are here, go to that instead.
7. The puppets
The opera dei pupi is Sicilian marionette theatre, it is on the UNESCO intangible heritage list, and it is not a children’s diversion.
The puppets are a metre tall, armoured, and heavy, and the stories are Carolingian romances performed at volume with a great deal of clanging. There are still working theatres in the city and a puppet museum with a serious collection. An hour, and unlike most things described as traditional, it has not been softened.
8. Quattro Canti and the Baroque centre
The crossroads where the two main streets meet, with four curved facades, each with a fountain, a Spanish king and a patron saint stacked up it.
It is a junction, so you will pass it repeatedly. Go once early in the morning when there is no traffic and you can actually stand in the middle of it. Piazza Pretoria with its enormous ring of white nude statues is thirty seconds away and was scandalous enough in the sixteenth century to be nicknamed the square of shame.
9. The catacombs, if you want them
Eight thousand mummified bodies in corridors under a monastery. It is one of the most visited sites in the city and it is not for everyone.
I have written it straight, including who should skip it, in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo.
10. The evening on the Foro Italico
Not an activity. Still the thing people remember.
The seafront strip along the bay fills up from about seven with families, cyclists, teenagers and people sitting on the sea wall doing nothing at all. Walk it, get a granita, and watch a large loud city be entirely at ease with itself.
11. Palazzo Abatellis
A fifteenth century palace on Via Alloro in the Kalsa, holding the regional gallery, and it is a much better museum than its visitor numbers suggest.
Two things in particular. The Triumph of Death is an enormous fresco of a skeletal rider on a skeletal horse cutting through a garden of comfortable people who have not yet noticed. It was moved here from a hospital courtyard and it is one of the great paintings of the Italian fifteenth century.
The other is Antonello da Messina’s Annunciata, a small panel of the Virgin at the moment of the Annunciation, holding her veil closed with one hand and raising the other. There is no angel in the picture. She is looking slightly past you at something you cannot see, and it is one of the quietest, strangest portraits anywhere.
Around six euros, an hour, and almost always calm.
12. The Zisa
A Norman palace on the western edge of the centre, built in the 1160s in an entirely Arab idiom by Arab craftsmen for a Norman king.
The name comes from al-Aziz, the splendid. The ground floor has a fountain room designed to move water and air through the building to cool it, which worked, and still tells you more about how these kings actually lived than any throne room. There is a small collection of Islamic art inside.
It is a bus ride or a long walk from the centre and it is nearly empty most days.
What to skip
The beach in the middle of a two day trip. Mondello is lovely and it is not what you came for if you only have forty-eight hours.
Driving anywhere in the centre. There is nothing to gain.
Booking a Godfather tour. The film locations are mostly in Savoca and Forza d’Agrò, three hours away near Taormina, not in Palermo.
If it rains
Palermo in the rain is a good day for the chapel, La Martorana, the archaeological museum and the puppet museum, with a long lunch somewhere in between. The archaeological museum holds the Selinunte metopes and is much better than its modest reputation.
With children
Better than it looks. The markets are a sensory event, the puppet theatre is loud and violent in exactly the way children enjoy, the beach is twenty minutes away, and the catacombs are an easy and obvious no.
Read also: Palermo street food and the markets, a Palermo itinerary, and my complete guide to Palermo.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Palermo best known for?
Arab-Norman architecture and street food. The royal chapel with its gold mosaics and Islamic ceiling is the single most important interior in Sicily, and the historic markets are the other half of the city’s reputation. Both come out of the same centuries of mixed rule.
What can you do in Palermo in one day?
The royal chapel at opening, a market for lunch standing up, the cathedral exterior and a cloister in the hot part of the afternoon, then the Foro Italico in the evening. It is a full day and it means skipping Monreale, which is the argument for staying two nights.
Is the Teatro Massimo tour worth it?
Yes, if you have an interest in the building or the acoustics. Tours last about half an hour and cost around nineteen euros, with a combined ticket available with Palazzo Butera. If a performance is running during your visit, go to that instead.
Are the Sicilian puppets worth seeing in Palermo?
Yes, and they are not a children’s show. The opera dei pupi is UNESCO listed intangible heritage, the marionettes are a metre tall and armoured, and the performances are loud, violent Carolingian romances. There are still working theatres and a serious museum collection in the city.
What should you skip in Palermo?
Driving in the centre, and Godfather location tours, which are based near Taormina rather than Palermo. If you only have two days, leave the beach at Mondello for another trip.
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