Palermo has a long, chequered history of destruction and construction; most recently the allied bombing in 1943 did for the historic centre and the unimaginative and massive post-war reconstruction of the outer city and adjacent farmland earned it the unhappy sobriquet or soprannome ‘the Sack of Palermo’.

Today, the historic centre of Palermo is a place of stark contrasts; a grand Palazzo dei Normanni and even grander Cattedrale di Palermo; museums such as the Museo Diocesano and Palazzo Arcivescovile filled with religious art and admiring tourists; crowded markets selling fresh produce and others selling everything else, much if it set out in discrete piles on the pavements; long streets filled with busy restaurants and pottery shops that all sell the same Pigna Ceramica; and narrow, unlit backstreets, empty, dilapidated apartments, tawdry graffiti and decay. The old city is an alfresco art gallery; the abiding memories are of noise, bright colours and friendly but busy people surrounded by a thousand statues, sublime architecture and peeling stonework.