In Palermo you understand everything from the markets. They are open-air theatres where the city has shouted, laughed and cooked for a thousand years. You walk in at dawn and come out with your hands greasy from fried food and your eyes full of colour.
Palermo's largest and oldest market smells of Arab spices and ripe fruit. The vendors' cries — the abbanniate — are a kind of music. Go early: at eight in the morning the light cuts across the stalls and the fish has just arrived.
Stalls piled with the day's catch — sardines, red prawns, octopus and sea urchins: at the Vucciria and the Capo the sea reaches the stalls from dawn. It is the truest spectacle in Palermo.
By day the Vucciria is a market; by night it becomes the city's liveliest square, between little tables and wine. The Capo, in the shade of its awnings, feels like a souk: narrow, exotic, real.
The local's tip
What to try: arancina, pane e panelle, sfincione and — for the more curious — pane ca' meusa. You eat standing, for a few euros, surrounded by people. It is the most authentic Palermo there is.
The markets are 10-15 minutes on foot from the house.
Palermo's markets — Ballarò, Vucciria and Capo — are the best way to discover Sicilian street food: arancina, pane e panelle, sfincione and pane ca' meusa. Staying at Palermo Holiday House, at Via Agrigento 10 near Via Libertà, you reach them on foot in 10-15 minutes. An authentic, free experience, perfect for those looking for what to do and where to eat in the old town of Palermo.
You choose the home, we give the tips to live it. Four units steps from Via Libertà.
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