Stories

In tourist cities, big supermarkets often seem to be deliberately hidden away from the main streets, and Palermo is no exception. Near most tourist areas, the main ones to look for are Lidl and Famila. Close to Teatro Massimo, there’s Prezzemolo & Vitale, while Conad can be useful if you’re staying near Piazza Indipendenza.

The phrase “there are no beaches in Palermo” surprises many of my guests. Palermo is right on the coast, but it’s a port city, so there really is no city beach. Most tourist guides send you to Mondello, but it’s definitely not my choice: the sea is beautiful, but for me it’s too noisy and there are too many bars around. So over time, I started looking for my own place to spend a couple of hours by the sea, not too far from the city.

Palermo, like Sicily itself, has two very different sides for me. It can be incredibly loud and completely quiet at the same time. Markets wake up with music, singing vendors and the old abbanniate, while just a few streets away you can escape all the noise. Sicily knows how to be quiet, and it knows how to sing loudly. In Palermo, there’s always room for both.

Fontana della Vergogna wasn’t originally created for Palermo. For around twenty years, it stood in Florence before being sold to Palermo. The enormous fountain was dismantled into hundreds of pieces, transported to Sicily and reassembled in Piazza Pretoria.

Traffic in Palermo can make even Italians nervous. Cars, scooters, bikes, e-scooters and horses all seem to be moving in the same direction, but each follows its own path and speed. In my first weeks living here, I learned the most important rule for crossing the street: find a friendly driver, look them in the eye with a smile, wait for a little sign that you can go — and cross. Quickly. And always with a smile.

Life in Palermo is quite comfortable without a car: we have trains, buses and trams, and for tourists the first two are usually enough. Google will show you the route, but there’s a local detail with buses — it’s best to get on with a ticket already in hand, and the easiest place to buy one in advance is a tabaccheria. With trains, there are more options: the ticket office, a machine, an app or Tap&Tap.

Getting from the airport to Palermo takes about an hour, and my favourite option is the train. The station is right inside the airport, and trains run to Palermo Centrale with several stops around the city, so you may be able to get off much closer to your hotel and avoid dragging your suitcase through Palermo. There’s also a bus for roughly the same price and, of course, taxis. Although when it comes to taxis, I usually joke with my guests: “There are no taxis in Palermo.”

For me, Ballarò is the heart and soul of Palermo. People taste, watch, sing and take photos, while scooters somehow make their way through the crowd and fresh ricotta is turned into cannolo cream right in front of you.