 All about PALERMO, Italy - Touristic informations, Foods & Events |
Palermo
Palermo is a lively, sunny city, full of events that are intended to enhance the city’s culture, history and traditions. If you are planning a vacation in Palermo in a period that coincides with one of these events, make sure you book your hotel in Palermo well in advance.
From June to September During the summer season, Palermo livens up and opens its squares and streets to musical shows of all kinds, traveling theater shows, and a lots of folklore events and more.
Quattro Canti
This is the heart of the old city center of Palermo and corresponds to Piazza Vigliena, which has been known as Quattro Canti for centuries, but also as “Teatro del Sole” as one can always see the sun from this spot, from dawn to dusk. The square is located at the crossroads between the city’s two main streets: Via Vittorio Emanuele and Via Maqueda that cut Palermo into four parts, known as “mandamenti”.
In the four corners of the square there are four seventeenth-century palaces, whose façades have a convex shape facing onto the square, and four basins with statues that represent the four seasons.
The Kalsa Quarter
This is Palermo's old Arabic quarter, built close to the sea in an era of people's riots, in order to allow the Emir to escape in the event of revolt. In ancient times it was home to the Arabs' entire military contingent when they ruled the city, their administrative and political offices, and also their prisons. It was named "al-halisah" that means "the elected one" in Arabic.
Today it is a working-class area of the city, extremely picturesque, where it is still possible to capture a feel of the ancient Arabic-Sicilian culture and often smell the strong aromas of the food that is prepared in the several kiosks along the streets. The center of the Kalsa quarter is the square which carries the same name. The sixteenth-century gateway, Porta dei Greci, also known as Porta d’Africa, from where it is possible to glimpse the sea, is a sight worth visiting.
Palermo Eating
In every restaurant in Palermo you can try all the local dishes that are part of Sicilian cuisine, but Palermo is also famous for some characteristic dishes, that were invented in this city and then spread to the rest of Sicily. Once very tasty example is pasta and sardines, a recipe made with simple ingredients but which is served in even the most luxurious restaurants in Palermo. This is a very tasty first course, made with wild fennel, fresh sardines, anchovies, saffron, sultanas and pine-nuts.
Panelle are also a typical Palermo dish: rectangular snacks made with chickpea flour, salt, pepper and parsley, fried in vegetable oil and served in the open-air kiosks. Other typical “street” snacks are sfincione, a kind of pizza topped with tomato, anchovies and onion, and pani c'a meusa, a sandwich filled with spleen.
Sicilian cooking also has some very traditional desserts: the famous cassata, which is complicated to make and delicious to eat, made with some of the main ingredients of the local patisserie art such as ricotta cheese, candied fruit and almonds. Another dessert that you must try is frutta martorana, colorful and impressive to see, and bursting with calories. In additions to trying this sweet in Palermo, it is also easy to transport and to take home as a souvenir.
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