Palermo is an extraordinary crossroads of baroque and Arabic styles, charming markets and absolute corners of peace, street food and high-end dining. The Sicilian capital is a place of wonderful melting-pot: it is the magical synthesis of history, culture, ethnicities, folklore, food, traditions, colors, and warm Mediterranean sounds.
In the words of the local writer and journalist Roberto Alajmo: "Palermo is an onion. The city is like this, it is layered and every time you peel one stratus there is another to discover."
During your holiday in Palermo you will discover a city full of surprises: behind a ruined palace you can find a treasure of art, behind a rusty door there is a baroque church, behind the wall of the palaces, the blue sea.
The historic home Il Giardino di Ballarò is Ballarò district, in the historical and oldest area of Palermo and a few minutes away from the most beautiful monuments of the city. All the main areas to visit are reachable in the time of a walk. The advice of our staff will help you to have new, surprising, and exciting experiences.
Palermo is a mix of everything you can imagine and we like to tell it briefly, before you start your own discovery from Il Giardino di Ballarò, historical home, B&B of art and charm in the ancient heart of the city.
San Giovanni degli Eremiti is a church of Norman origin located on the bed of the Kemonia river, now dry, which bordered the eastern part of the ancient Punic Paleopoles. The Church of Jesus, known as Casa Professa, is a baroque jewel with sumptuous shapes, typical of the artistic style of the late '500.
IBallarò historic market is in the heart of Palermo, close to the Central Station and the Royal Palace, and is the place that best expresses the multicultural soul of Palermo. A walk in Ballarò is also a must-do for those who want to try the famous Palermo street food.
From the beginning, Palermo had a main road axis that runs it entirely from west to east, up to the sea, identifiable by the current Via Vittorio Emanuele, that the Palermitans keep on calling Cassaro, from the Arabic Al-Csar, castle, to name the road that led from the Palazzo dei Normanni to the sea, ending in the Foro Italico, in Porta Felice, built in 1581.
The ideal city center of Palermo corresponds to the Quattro Canti, the meeting point of the two great city arteries, via Vittorio Emanuele and via Maqueda, which divides the city into four large cantons, called mandati: The Royal Palace, Monte di Pietà, Castellammare and Tribunali.
The Cathedral of Palermo, named after Maria SS Assunta, is the monument that represents the city, symbol of the cooperation between the different dominations in Sicily. The Cathedral of Palermo is part of the Arab-Norman itinerary of the UNESCO heritage city.
The Royal Palace or Norman Palace is in the oldest nucleus of the Punic and Roman city, known by the Arabic name al-Halqah, the Galca. The royal castle was built in the Fatimida style around the 10th century by the Arab emirs who made it the first seat of administrative activities, and it named the surrounding district and the main street, the Cassaro (now via Vittorio Emanuele).
