Stories

When Lisca Bianca set off on her round-the-world voyage, her owners, Sergio and Licia, were around 60 years old. Over the next three years, they sailed around the world on a 13-metre wooden yacht, meeting Sicilian emigrants along the way and working on a book. When they returned to Palermo, around 5,000 people were there to welcome them.

Passeggiata delle Cattive means “the prisoners’ promenade.” This long terrace above the Foro Italico was once created especially for widows — women considered “prisoners” of mourning, who were not supposed to enjoy the usual pleasures of life.

Porta Felice has no traditional arch across the top, and there’s a favourite Palermo story about why. In the 18th century, people jokingly called the gate i corna a luna — “horns under the moon.” Nearby was the seafront, where aristocrats loved taking evening walks, including romantic ones. So people joked that the top had deliberately been left open so that cheated husbands could enter the city without catching their horns on the arch.

A few centuries ago, parks were a privilege reserved for churches and the aristocracy, while Villa Giulia became one of the first places in Italy created simply for the public. Here, Atlas holds an unusual sundial, the Sicilian Pantheon hides among the cypress trees, and one of Palermo’s Genii.