Route: Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palazzo Reale, Cattedrale, Piazza Mediterraneo, Torre di San Nicolò, Piazza Bellini

The first step will be Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Eremiti, notable for its brilliant red domes, which show clearly the persistence of Arab influences in Sicily at the time of its reconstruction in the 12th century. Then we will arrive to the Royal Palace or the Palace of the Normans, the seat of the Regional Parliament, which is the oldest royal residence of Europe. It rises above the first Punic wall, whose traces are still visible in the basement. Following the Cassaro (today Corso Vitt. Emanuele) we see the Cathedral with its towers, its mullioned windows, its pointed and twisted arches. Its majesty is exciting among the small streets and buildings of 3 or 4 floors typical of the Cassaro. This important architectural monument bears witness, in the layering of styles produced by numerous changes, to most of the city's history.
Visiting a new place is like opening a big book of memories of an entire community. And through these memories it’s possible to weave a net of stories, in which each knot of the plot represents the articulation of a path and a story. The stories of individual men and women together in terms of lived lives, the events, the social and cultural transformations, development of literary styles, artistic and the architectural heritage of the centuries; the advent and transformations of voices and faces that have lived as the protagonists of their time. So, in this storytelling we will arrive in Piazza Mediterraneo and at Tower of San Nicolò both in the old district of Ballarò. Climbing the tower of San Nicolò you can discover the most beautiful outlook of the old city center: the place where the mightiness of the past perfectly joins with the vivacity of the present!  From Piazza Bellini, in a sole blink of an eye we find some of the most beautiful monuments the city can offer: the chiesa di Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, the chiesa di San Cataldo, the chiesa di Santa Caterina.

Vista dalla Torre di San Nicolò di Bari all’Albergheria – Palermo