"Ziz" meaning flower, by the Phoenicians. When the Roman Empire fell, Sicily came under the rule of the Goths. Palermo is a beautiful ancient port city. It is busy, hectic yet clean and crowded. A million people inhabit Palermo and 5 million live on the island of Sicily.
Palermo is located in the northwest of
the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Palermo has been in existence for 2,700 years. It's multitude of conquerors vary from the first settlers, the Phoenicians, then the Carthaginians, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Romans, French Angevins, Spanish Aragonese and even the Mafia are among those who contributed to Palermo's cultural history. Sicily became part of Italy in 1850.
It has a reputation as a hot bed for organised crime. Still, it is filled with museums, churches, markets and good food. A very important attraction is the Norman Cattedrale and the Saracen-Norman-Spanish Palazzo (a royal palace.)
Today we are going on a sightseeing trip to Cefalu'. Our guide will be Josephena. We drive by beautiful English gardens, a 1700 century prison where the first Mafia trials were held, a theater on the square. Fiat has a factory on Sicily. They have a very large industrial park and they make their own electricity. We passed by a train station, where when excavating, an ancient city and tombstones were discovered.
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