From the March issue of The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

What are we going to do about Palermo? Italian politicians are always asking this question. Because the Sicilian capital has long been a byword for corruption, vice and decadence – although the coffee’s quite fabulous.

So what do you do about Palermo? The answer is, you sit back and enjoy it – because this magnificently chaotic, sumptuously ancient city is one of southern Europe’s greatest spectacles.

In few other places can you find such heady flavours, jumbled so close together: the palazzi of medieval princes inhabited by families of paupers, catacombs full of corpses underneath restaurants full of billionaires.

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In the old town, grandiose Baroque churches such as the Chiesa del Gesù gaze serenely over 1,000-year-old working-class quarters including the Albergheria; not far away, Rococo fountains splash in the shadow of palaces dating from Muslim times. And the whole of it is set on a sparkling blue bay, under the noble Sicilian sun, next to one of the most high-fashion beaches in Europe: the Mondello.

That said, you still have to tread a little carefully. Millions might have been poured into Palermo – and many of the worst slumlands improved – but at night the dingiest corners maintain a soupçon of menace. And the Mafia, they say, still collect their ‘dues’ for ‘protection’.

But unless you want to set up a pizzeria in the middle of the barrios you won’t encounter this unsavouriness. What you will discover is a city of princes, a gangsters’ paradise, and

the peerless capital of a flamboyant forgotten civilisation: Islamo-Norman Sicily. However you savour it, Palermo, like its coffee, is pretty perfetto.

FOR PRINCES

In the 12th century, Palermo was one of the grandest cities in Europe, with a population of 250,000 Italians, Jews and Arabs, ruled by exuberant Norman overlords. So pleased were they with their southern conquest, they built a bunch of mosaic-filled churches to say thanks. La Martorana (circa 1140) is the most alluring: its sepulchral, silver-gold interior gives it the air of a large Fabergé jewellery box (Piazza Bellini; free admission).

Before the Normans rolled up, Sicily was ruled by sultans from North Africa. But instead of erasing these Arab influences, the new conquerors married the sensuous Islamic architecture to their own Romanesque tendencies – with tinges of Gothic. See this exotic cocktail in stone at the Palazzo dei Normanni (Piazza Indipendenza 1; £3), especially the miraculous Capella Palatine. Here, mosaic scenes of Eve reaching for her second apple (bad girl) sit next to Islamic carvings of harem life.

Just 30 minutes from downtown you’ll find the enticing resort of Mondello. It’s elegant and friendly: expect women tottering on absurd stilettos down to the very swimmable sea. Backed by the soaring heights of mighty Monte Pellegrino, the beach has the feeling of a stage set; rather fittingly, as this is where tutti Palermo likes to theatrically parade its molls and designer toyboys. Take bus 806 from Piazza Luigi Sturzo, or a cab (£18).

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