Foro Italico

The story

The seafront promenade was laid out at the end of the 16th century outside Porta Felice and for centuries it was the Marina, where the Palermo nobility rode out in carriages in the evening and where Goethe, in 1787, stopped to listen to music. In the 19th century it was widened and planted with trees and took the name Foro Italico.

After the bombings of 1943 the strip along the sea became a dump for rubble and stayed derelict for a long time. Its recovery in the early 2000s turned the area into a great lawn open to the gulf, which Palermitans adopted at once.

Behind it lie the Kalsa, Villa Giulia and the Botanical Garden.

Why it is worth it

This is where Palermo breathes: a huge lawn with the sea in front, Monte Pellegrino to the left and the mountains closing the gulf. In the evening it fills with families, kids on bikes, sellers of ice cream and pumpkin seeds, people sitting on the grass watching the light change. There is nothing to visit, and that is exactly the point.