Palermo

Palermo is a city living on the edge.

It feels vibrant and full of life, but this isn’t a polished city.

Beautiful palazzi sit alongside ruins. Chaotic marketplaces where shouting, singing and dancing are all commonplace are strewn with discarded vegetable leaves as the smell of deep-frying panelle hit the air.

It’s theatre without the velvet seats.

It’s Italy, but not quite.

It’s by the sea, yet could easily be in-land.

There’s the cliches - good and bad.

Local bars serving Sicilian classics and local delicacies like Iris. Wine bar spilling onto cobbled streets as scooters whizz by and laundry dries above.

The chaos and the calm, existing side-by-side.