Palermo
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Arab Norman Palermo And The Cathedral Churches Of Cefalu And Monreale, Inscribed 2015), Including The Cappella Palatina Of 1132 · Palermo, Sicily
Palermo was ruled by Arabs and then by Normans who kept the Arab craftsmen on, and the result is a city where a Christian king's private chapel has a wooden ceiling carved by Muslim workmen with Kufic inscriptions in it, under Byzantine gold mosaics, and nobody at the time thought that was strange. That chapel is the single best room in Sicily. Around it sprawls a loud, decayed, half-restored capital of five hundred thousand people with baroque churches going to ruin next to ones immaculately kept, street markets that shout at you in a dialect of Arabic word order, and catacombs under a convent holding eight thousand dressed corpses standing in rows. It is not a pretty city and it does not try to be. It has the best street food in Italy, a UNESCO listing spanning nine buildings, and an opera house the size of a cathedral. Give it three days and do not expect it to be tidy, because the decay and the gold are the same city and you cannot have one without the other.
Piazza del Parlamento 1, Palermo, Sicily, 90129, Italy
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: the Cappella Palatina and royal palace open daily with a last admission before closing AND CLOSE TO VISITORS WHEN THE SICILIAN PARLIAMENT SITS, which is the one scheduling trap here. The cathedral opens daily and free with the roof and crypt on separate ticketed hours. The Capuchin catacombs open daily with a midday interval. Markets run mornings, Monday to Saturday. Churches and oratories keep short and unreliable hours. Confirm the chapel first.