Palermo is busy, hectic, intimidating and interesting by turns.
It's the city which most encapsulates Sicily, and it is the home to some of the region's most important tourist attractions.
Palermo is Sicily's regional capital, and is a busy port city situated on the north-western coast of the island. In the Middle Ages, Palermo was one of Europe's leading cities, but nowadays the town is still trying to recover from twentieth-century years of blight.
With a reputation as a hotbed for both petty and organised crime, Palermo's attractions as a tourist destination are frequently overlooked. There is some fine architecture to be admired, as well as good museums, churches, markets and restaurants.
Among the most important tourist attractions of Palermo are the city's Norman Cattedrale and the Saracen-Norman-Spanish Palazzo Reale (or Palazzo dei Normanni), a former royal palace added to and altered over the centuries, and now the seat of the local parliament.
You can visit parts of the latter building, including the Cappella Palatina, an exquisite chapel containing rich mosaics. Other sights include La Martorana, a splendid Norman church with a Baroque facade ,the imposing Teatro Massimo and Vucciria market (which features heavily in Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily).
Plays acted by marionettes are a local tradition, and you can visit the Puppet Museum (Museo delle Marionette) to learn more about the history of the art - and see a performance if you can.
Museums include the Galleria Regionale in Palazzo Abatellis, and the fine Museo Archeologico Regionale, which contains archaeological exhibits from from the famous sites in western Sicily.
For those with more specialist interests (and strong nerves) it's worth making a trip to the macabre Convento dei Cappuccini's catacombs lined with the dead.
Palermo's tourist information offices are located at the airport, Stazione Centrale, and Piazza Castelnuovo 35.