The Magna Via Francigena begins with Palermo

The starting point of this fascinating journey,  Palermo alone is worth the miles traveled to reach it: Palermo, a city of lights and shadows, marks the beginning of the path that leads through the Sicilian hinterland and to the beautiful Agrigento, the final stage of the journey. 

The Magna Via Francigena traces the internal road system (the so-called trazzere - ancient dirt paths) formerly used by flocks in transhumance,but also by local merchant traffic. Walking this itinerary is not just a physical act of movement in space - but also a journey through time, to discover forgotten rhythms, boundless horizons and the hearty smiles of the locals. 

It is the enveloping warmth of Sicily that one breathes in Palermo. The cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city, the chatter of the markets, the thousand flavors and smells filling every corner: it is not easy to choose which way to go, with every street opening onto infinite possible itineraries. 

Even art in Palermo has a thousand facets: the city is a riot of different styles and artistic currents, overlapping each other and telling a thousand-year history: from the Phoenician origin to theArab-Norman domination, finishing with the Spanish. Walking through the streets of the center is like taking a journey back in time among Roman villas, Baroque palaces, Arabesque inlays and Byzantine mosaics. 

You can't help but walk with your nose up in Palermo. And the wonder is undisputed, but it is prerogative of those who know how to grasp it even where not immediately visible, hidden among the thousand contradictions of a city with a decadent charm, between the grayness of the suburbs, the waste abandoned on the sides of the roads, the unruled speeding of cars.  

You don't love Palermo like you love a beautiful painting, that's simple, it comes by instinct. Palermo must be understood, known little by little, listened to in silence. Only then it can reveal its beauty - as it always happens with the most precious things.