Insight Guides Sicily (Travel Guide eBook)

Insight Guides

• Publisher: Insight Guides
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781789193084
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Voyage

Insight Guides: all you need to inspire every step of your journey.

From deciding when to go, to choosing what to see when you arrive, this is all you need to plan your trip and experience the best of Sicily, with in-depth insider information on must-see, top attractions like buzzing Palermo, Mount Etna and Agrigento's Valley of the Temples.

- Insight Guide Sicily is ideal for travellers seeking immersive cultural experiences, from exploring Palermo's Arab-Norman heart, to discovering the exquisite and hiking-friendly Zíngaro nature reserve
- In-depth on history and culture: enjoy special features on festivals, architecture and Sicily in the movies, all written by local experts
- Invaluable maps, travel tips and practical information ensure effortless planning, and encourage venturing off the beaten track
- Inspirational colour photography throughout - Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books
- Inventive design makes for an engaging, easy reading experience

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrase books, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

Palermo

Love it or loathe it, Palermo pulls a punch, with the ongoing restoration of the city centre hailed a success – so let an array of Arab-Norman architecture and exotic street food dazzle your senses.

Main Attractions

Chiesa della Martorana

Cattedrale (Cathedral)

Palazzo dei Normanni

San Giovanni degli Eremiti

Ballarò market

Oratorio del Rosario di San Domenico

Museo Archeologico Regionale

Palazzo Abatellis (Galleria Regionale)

Orto Botánico (Botanical Gardens)

Castello della Zisa

Convento dei Cappuccini

Palermo is both an essay in chaos and a jewel-box of a city: no map does justice to the city’s confusion. Sicily’s capital is a synthesis of bombsites and beauty, with sumptuous Arab-Norman and Baroque splendour interspersed with an intriguing Moorish muddle. Indeed, Palermo is not merely a crucible of Mediterranean culture but of world culture, given its history of conquest by Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards. As a result, the Spanish grid system is subverted by Moorish blind alleys, while domed churches may resemble mosques. Even the Palazzo dei Normanni, the royal palace, is built on Punic walls, but looks Moorish, Byzantine and Baroque by turns.

Bustling Ballarò market.

Neil Buchan-Grant/Apa Publications

As a complex city culture that knows many masters, Palermo is, by nature, secretive yet seductive. Many masters, past and present, have been corrupt or neglectful. The cosmopolitan city was devastated during the Allied invasion of Italy when, in 1943, Allied bombs shattered the port and historic centre. Afterwards, the Mafia, in league with corrupt politicians, stepped in, accepting funds from Rome and, later, the European Union, for the rebuilding of the centro storico, only to siphon off the money for their own pleasures.

Il Gesù, also known as Casa Professa, Sicily’s first Jesuit church.

Neil Buchan-Grant/Apa Publications

Public attitudes only changed with the Mafia murders of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 (for more information, click here). Palermitans experienced a wave of revulsion, and citizens were no longer willing to be silently dominated by the Mafia. After a period of political stagnation, a feeling of hope now permeates the air as the Sicilian authorities combat corruption with some success. A citizen-led anti-Mafia movement and new civic pride seems to have taken root, despite a compromised city administration.

The historic centre

Palermo is divided into four sections by the Quattro Canti 1 [map] , the crossroads at Piazza Vigliena, where “four corners of the city” are formed by two great arteries, Via Maqueda and Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the main street, built over a Phoenician road. The corners, embellished with Baroque stonework and fountains, are hard to appreciate amid the roar of traffic and the clatter of horses’ hooves.

Getting around

The historic centre, where you’ll be spending nearly all your time, is best tackled on foot – driving is stressful and parking a problem. The hop-on-hop-off sightseeing buses are a useful way of getting your bearings and handy when tiredness sets in.

Taxis are best telephoned, or found at taxi ranks or outside big hotels (check the meter is switched on).

A horse-drawn carriage (carrozza) may be tempting but both you (and the blinkered horses) may be exposed to heavy traffic, summer heat and pollution.

City Sightseeing Palermo: “hop-on-hop-off” tours in red, open-top double-decker buses (24-hour ticket €20, lines A, B plus Monreale €25) with night tours in summer too, and bus links to Monreale. For information on routes and tariffs, visit www.city-sightseeing.it/it/palermo.

Cars: parking in Palermo can be a challenge (you can park only along streets with the blue lines) and even if there is space, it won’t come cheap (rates start from €1 per hour). Part of the city centre is a Limited Traffic Zone (ZTL) with access only for drivers with a permit. You can check the location of car parks in Palermo by visiting www.car-parking.eu.

Taxis: tel: [phone] or tel: [phone].

Carriages: Pick up a horse-drawn carriage from outside the Teatro Massimo (from €50).

Transport network: information on city buses and parking, www.amat.pa.it.

Northwest of Corso Emanuele is the Capo quarter and southwest the Albergheria. Northeast of Via Roma is the Vucciria and southeast lies the Kalsa. Each quarter reveals a picturesque clutter of mansions, markets and forbidding Baroque churches with luminous interiors.

Just along from Quattro Canti is Piazza Pretoria 2 [map] , dominated by the Fontana Pretoria. This Baroque square was once disparagingly nicknamed Piazza della Vergogna (the Square of Shame) because of its abundance of flagrantly nude statues that make up the 16th-century Tuscan fountain. More than 30 near-naked nymphs, tritons, gods and youths surround its vast circular basin. Allegedly, the local nuns chopped off the noses of many of the naked men (but stopped short of castration). The statues are now restored and ornamental railings have been added to prevent further mishaps.

Piazza Pretoria.

Neil Buchan-Grant/Apa Publications

Adjoining the square is the Palazzo delle Aquile, the remodelled town hall, with eagles decorating the exterior. The towering presence here, however, is San Giuseppe dei Teatini 3 [map] (Mon–Sat 9.30am–noon, 5.30pm–8pm, Sun 8.30am–1.15pm, 6–8pm; free), whose opulent interior exudes a Baroque spirit, beginning with the majolica-encrusted cupola. During the 17th and 18th centuries the church was theatrically decorated with multicoloured marble and with eight massive columns in grey marble to support the dome, which is emblazoned with a fresco of the Triumph of Sant’Andrea Avellino (1724) by Borremans.

Eat

Pastry shops (pasticcerie) sell delicious handmade marzipan confections designed to look like peaches, oranges, pears, prickly pears and apples. They are usually known as frutti alla martorana, because it was the Benedictine nuns in the convent that took over Palermo’s La Martorana church in 1233 who first created them. The convent no longer exists, but the marzipan lives on.

On neighbouring Piazza Bellini the campanile of Chiesa della Martorana 4 [map] (Mon–Sat 9.30am–1pm and 3.30pm–5.30pm, Sun 9–10.30am) stands tall alongside the three small red domes of San Cataldo. La Martorana was established in 1143 by George of Antioch, an admiral whose successes brought such fortune to Norman Sicily that Roger II honoured him with the title emir. (The church was originally called Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, or St Mary of the Admiral, in his honour.) Greek Byzantine craftsmen made the splendid mosaics. In the cupola is Christ Pantocrator Blessing from the Throne; elsewhere, with angels and apostl...

Table of contents

• Sicily’s Top 10 Attractions
• Editor’s Choice
• Introduction: A Volcanic Heritage
• The Sicilians
• The Shaping of Sicily
• Decisive Dates
• Insight: Building for Posterity
• The Mafia
• Food and Wine
• Wild Places
• Introduction: Places
• Palermo
• Insight: A Flowering of Flamboyance
• Palermo Province
• Insight: The Arab-Norman Legacy
• Trápani Province
• The Egadi Islands and Pantelleria
• Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples
• Agrigento Province
• Insight: Festivals Sacred and Profane
• Caltanissetta Province
• Enna Province
• Ragusa Province
• Siracusa
• Siracusa Province
• Insight: The Art of Puppetry and Painted Carts
• Catania
• Mount Etna and Catania Province
• Taormina
• Messina Province
• The Aeolian Islands
• Travel Tips: Transport
• Travel Tips: A–Z
• Travel Tips: Language
• Travel Tips: Further Reading