One after another, opposites are created by footsteps along the streets in Palermo, shoe soles on its balate. Palermo is poverty and nobility; slowness and theatrical chaos; flair and deference. Palermo is light – a light that exists nowhere else – and darkness that can reach the most remote abysses. Ultimately, Palermo is enchantment. But a complex enchantment that you can never really access. In the words of Roberto Alajmo, “Palermo is an onion”; when you think you’ve reached its heart, she will show you another layer. This little booklet is a sort of dictionary. An itinerary reflecting the city’s many different personalities; it comes alive thanks to the people who have lived in it, the words they have used to narrate it, the stories that have dwelled in it, and the legends that have coloured it; a city imbued with its flavours, waves, scents, domes, saints and traditions. Imbued by opposites that penetrate its layers and unmask the very raw beauty jealo