Palermo is a city of contrasts. It is a mixture of rich and poor, of breathtaking beauty and revolting ugliness. It has been commended and damned, detested and adored. In short it is a city that just cannot be ignored, and also one where the tourist would be wise to be careful, Palermo after dark can be extremely dangerous. It has had a checkered history, a history that will easily capture the imagination of every tourist to visit the city. This was the characteristic of the city that made the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, insist in 1768, that he had to see Palermo to add the city to his knowledge of classical culture, and his observation that Palermo was “easy to grasp in its overall plan, but difficult to get to know in detail" is still valid today. Goethe arrived by sea, and at the foot of Monte Pallegrino, the scene he was presented with, made him describe it, in his travel diary – Italian Journey – as “the "tops of trees swaying like vegetable glow-worms" and a haze tinting "all the shadows blue." He was right; the best way to get your first impression of Palermo is to come by sea. 

The Arab influence is very evident in Palermo’s buildings, especially in its museums and elaborate oratories. A visit to its outdoor markets takes you straight into an atmosphere reminiscent of North Africa, an experience of Arab ambience. These markets are a treasure trove of the exotic – the sea creatures on sale, the beauty of mounds of purple artichokes, piles of blood-red oranges, and pyramids of oyster-white eggplant all are guaranteed to bewilder you. The city is a madhouse with noise and pollution everywhere. It is filled with old monuments – Arab cupolas, Byzantine street markets, and Norman and baroque architectural gems that someone forgot to tear down a long time ago.

Palermo is an ancient city; the Phoenicians having established a trading post here in the 8th century. It later became the Carthaginian centre of Italy. The Romans came in 254 BC, and when they did Palermo lost its power and influence as the Romans shifted their seat of power and trading to Syracuse on the east coast. Over the years a series of invaders came and ruled over the city. First were the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths and in 830 the Arabs took over. Under the Arabs the city flourished and it became one of the great emporiums of the Mediterranean, with fabulous mosques and luxurious palaces. After the Arabs, the Normans came in the eleventh century and Palermo still prospered. By 1072 it had fallen to Roger de Hauteville had captured the city, marking the beginning of the Norman period. Under his son, King Roger, who ruled from 1130 to 1154, Palermo entered its golden age, with Muslims, Christians, and Jews living in harmony and prosperity. After this it was the turn of King Frederick, who ascended to the throne of Sicily in 1208, Palermo now became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. The grand age of Hohenstaufen rule ended in 1266 when the French Angevins came to the throne. These rulers launched a tyrannical rule that ended in the Rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. As a consequence of this revolt, the Spanish Aragonese came into rule in Palermo. The Aragonese preferred Naples over Palermo as a capital, the power vacuum that resulted because of their departure was filled by the feudal families and religious orders. 

This was the beginning of the end of Palermo’s glory days and the city went into a slow decline over the next few centuries. This continuous deterioration may have been the reason for the attitude and reputation of the city today. Is seen by the rest of the world as a city of crime, or as a city official puts it, “Palermo knows how to absorb its villains well.” To compound matters, the city suffered a massive bombardment in 1943, and the reconstruction that was carried out after the war was, at best, haphazard.  In the years after the war, the city's very name became a synonym for corruption under the Mafia. In recent years their influence has been curbed but it is doubtful that it will ever be completely rooted out. City officials will admit that much of the funds meant for the renovation of Palermo have ended up in the pockets of the Mafia. But of course nothing is permanent, and the unheard-of actually happened some 20 years ago. A series of informers knowing their lives were at risk, came forward to witness against the Mafia. The fight had started and, as the papers screamed, "the tide was turning" against the Cosa Nostra. This fight continued under Leoluca Orlando, the city's mayor from 1993 to 2001. He refused to let the city do business with companies he suspected of having links with the Mafia. Even his own Christian Democrat party disowned him, but that did not stop Orlando. 

Once the war against crime started gaining momentum, the people of Palermo found the time to turn their minds and hearts to other matters, and thus came to realize the importance of its architectural legacy. This has brought about a keen interest in restoring the great treasures belonging to the city.  The Teatro Massimo was renovated and opened again in 1997, old and historic quarters, such as the Kalsa, are being brought back to their past glory. Restaurants, galleries, and cafes are being opened and some modernized so as to move with the times. All this creative activity has brought about a feeling of hope for the future in Palermo. 

The scalding sun of Palermo makes its summers oppressive with the heat and very much like the North African cities of Tangiers or Algiers. The seven hundred thousand inhabitants of the city cannot be called typically European, or even representative Italians. They are a controversial lot and there are many evil things said about them, but on one point everyone agrees, and that is that they are consumers of the pleasures of life, or as they themselves say – “We are Sicilian, not Italian!!”