This guide covers six places that show how many layers Palermo has: two Arab-Norman churches from the 12th century, the Teatro Massimo opera house, the Salinas archaeological museum, the Capuchin Catacombs and the royal park of La Favorita. Four of them sit in or near the old town and can be linked on foot; the catacombs lie on its western edge and the park further north, at the foot of Monte Pellegrino.
Cappella Palatina
The Cappella Palatina is the royal chapel inside the Norman Palace, the seat of the Norman kings of Sicily and today of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. King Roger II had it built from 1132, on top of an older chapel that survives as the crypt. Its builders mixed three worlds: a Latin basilica plan, Byzantine gold mosaics and an Islamic-style painted wooden ceiling.
The mosaics were only partly finished by 1143; the rest were added over the following decades. The wooden ceiling of the nave is the earliest surviving example of wooden muqarnas, the honeycomb-like vaulting of Islamic architecture, covered in painted scenes of everyday life. Since 2015 the chapel has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo.
- Christ Pantocrator in the dome, surrounded by angels, prophets and saints.
- The muqarnas ceiling with its eight-pointed stars: bring binoculars or use your phone's zoom for the small painted figures.
- The marble floor and lower walls inlaid with geometric patterns in red, green and white stone.
Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (La Martorana)
The church of Saint Mary of the Admiral takes its name from George of Antioch, a Syrian Christian who served as admiral and chief minister of Roger II. Its foundation charter, written in Greek and Arabic, dates from 1143, and the church was finished by the time George died in 1151; he and his wife were buried in the narthex. The plan is a Greek cross with a dome showing Christ Pantocrator, in the Byzantine tradition.
Its popular name comes from a Benedictine convent founded next door in 1193-94 by a noblewoman, Eloisa Martorana; the convent was joined to the church in the 1430s. The nuns became known for marzipan shaped and painted to look like real fruit, still sold in Palermo's pastry shops as frutta martorana. Today the church is a co-cathedral of the Italo-Albanian Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi and celebrates the Byzantine rite. It is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
- Two mosaics from the original facade: Roger II, in Byzantine robes, crowned by Christ, and George of Antioch at the feet of the Virgin.
- The bell tower with three orders of arches, now the main entrance, and next door the red domes of San Cataldo on Piazza Bellini.
Teatro Massimo
The Teatro Massimo on Piazza Verdi is the largest theatre in Italy, and when it opened it was the third largest opera house in Europe, after the Palais Garnier in Paris and the Vienna court opera. The foundation stone was laid in 1874 to a design by Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile. Work stopped for most of the 1880s, Basile died in 1891, and his son Ernesto finished the building. It opened on 16 May 1897 with Verdi's Falstaff.
In 1974 the theatre closed for safety work and stayed shut for 23 years, reopening on 12 May 1997, just before its centenary. Film fans know its stairway from the final scenes of The Godfather Part III, shot here in 1990. The theatre is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt, and guided tours show the auditorium inside.
- The two bronze lions on either side of the great stairway, by the sculptors Mario Rutelli and Benedetto Civiletti.
- The classical temple front with its columns, and the large dome above the auditorium.
Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum
Sicily's main archaeological museum began in 1814 as the museum of the University of Palermo and moved in 1866 into the former convent of the Oratorians at the Olivella, a few streets from the Teatro Massimo. It is named after Antonino Salinas, the Palermo archaeologist and coin expert who ran it from 1873 until his death in 1914. After a long restoration that began in 2009, it reopened in stages from 2016.
Its collection covers Sicily from prehistory to Roman times, with finds from Greek cities such as Selinunte and Himera. It also holds the Palermo Stone, a fragment of a slab carved with the oldest known royal annals of ancient Egypt, and the largest of the surviving pieces. The museum is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
- The archaic metopes from the temples of Selinunte, with scenes from Greek myth.
- The row of lion-head waterspouts from a temple at Himera, displayed in the museum courtyard.
Capuchin Catacombs
Under the Capuchin monastery on the western edge of the centre lie long corridors lined with the dead of Palermo. In the 16th century the friars' cemetery became too small and they dug crypts below it; the first friar placed there, Brother Silvestro of Gubbio, was laid to rest in 1599. Soon wealthy citizens wanted to be preserved here too, dressed in their best clothes.
A 2011 survey counted about 8,000 bodies and 1,252 mummies, sorted into corridors for men, women, virgins, children, priests, friars and professionals. The best known is Rosalia Lombardo, a girl of nearly two embalmed by Alfredo Salafia, who still looks asleep. The catacombs were officially closed to new burials in 1880, though a few took place until 1939. This is a place for respect and quiet; it is not on our scavenger hunt route.
- The professionals' corridor, where doctors, lawyers and artists were placed together, some still in their period clothes.
Parco della Favorita
La Favorita is Palermo's largest green area, about 400 hectares at the foot of Monte Pellegrino in the north-west of the city. It was laid out in 1799 by the Bourbon king Ferdinand, who had fled Naples to Sicily in 1798, as a royal estate for hunting and farming. Today it is a public park with long tree-lined avenues, and the Renzo Barbera football stadium stands on its edge. It is not on our scavenger hunt route, so plan it as a separate outing.
- The Palazzina Cinese, the king's Chinese-style residence, and beside it the Pitrè Ethnographic Museum of Sicilian folk life.
- The neoclassical Fountain of Hercules, a column topped by a statue of the hero.
How to see them in one walk
Start at the Norman Palace for the Cappella Palatina, then walk out through Porta Nuova if you want to add the Capuchin Catacombs on the western side. Back in the centre, follow Via Vittorio Emanuele past the cathedral to the Quattro Canti and turn into Piazza Bellini for the Martorana. Walk up Via Maqueda to the Teatro Massimo and finish at the Salinas museum, a few streets away. Keep La Favorita for another morning or afternoon, by bus or car. Both churches ask for covered shoulders and knees.
See Palermo with World City Trail
Our Palermo scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the Norman Palace to the Teatro Massimo, and the palace, Saint Mary of the Admiral, the Salinas museum and the Teatro Massimo are all stops, along with Porta Nuova, the cathedral, the Gesù church, the Fontana Pretoria, the Quattro Canti and San Domenico. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Palermo, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Palermo scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Palermo →
Play the outdoor escape game in Palermo →
Facts checked in October 2026.