10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD MOVE TO PALERMO

1 WEATHER

Winter in Palermo is generally sunny, with a few days of rain, mostly in January and February. The temperature stays around +14-15°, rarely falling down to +10°. Summers are warm, but thanks to proximity to the sea and the sea breeze, it doesn’t get too hot. August is the hottest month in Palermo with an average temperature of +27° (+80°F), the coldest is January at +13°C (+55°F). In august the average sea temperature reaches +26°C (+79°F).

2 PALERMO IS NOT EXPENSIVE AT ALL

Palermo is one of the cheapest cities in European Union if you live like a local!

Accommodations in the City Center can be very affordable. You can easily find a comfortable room for €200 a month. Here’s one resource to find inexpensive places to live:

https://www.palermoerasmuslife.net/english/apartments-for-rent/ )

Inexpensive street food is very popular. Between arancine, pane e panelle and local beer and wine, you can stretch your dollar (or euro) a long way. In La Vucciria, for instance, you can have a blast drinking beer for only €1,70 and wine for €1 a glass.

If you live in the Center, you can walk everywhere saving money on public transportation. In addition, several main streets in the city have been made pedestrian zones, which makes your walking experience more enjoyable.

The markets of Ballarò, Capo and Vucciria offer a wide range of inexpensive local foods such as freshly caught fish, vegetables, cheese and variety of meat and meat products.

3 FOOD IS AMAZING

Enjoying Palermo's street food is a unique experience. It allows you to dive into the local culture and the city's tumultuous history.

Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs and Africans have all had their share in creating a wonderful and colorful fare we now know as traditional Palermo food. The sea rich with fish and the fertile volcanic soil provide the freshest ingredients necessary for creating these simple masterpieces.

Arancine, pane e panelle, baby squid sandwiches, mussels and many other tasty morsels are often cooked right before your eyes by the street merchants. It is as much fun to eat the food as to watch it being prepared!

Prices are cheap and you will definitely get really good deals in the old markets of the city.

Do you need more info about the typical SICILIAN FOOD?

4 PALERMO IS FULL OF BEAUTIFUL MONUMENTS AND UNESCO HERITAGES

Palermo is among the cities with the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world. It is a mystical city with a rich culturale heritage, its architecture is an amazing mixture of Arab-Norman and Baroque styles, characteristic of Sicily. Hidden in the narrow streets are magnificent oratories and churches with rich mosaics, frescoes and reliefs. Cattedrale di Palermo, Arab-Norman Palace and Zisa Castle are all great places to begin your discovery of the city, Teatro Massimo is one of the most known and most beautiful theaters in the world.

5 PALERMO IS MULTI-CULTURAL AND PEOPLE ARE READY TO HELP AND GET TO KNOW YOU

Palermitani are hospitable and friendly. They welcome everyone with open arms, eager to share their love for their city and for the entire island. Even with the language barrier (not too many speak English), they do their best to try and help you in any way they can, even with body-language and gestures.

Should you find yourself invited to a Sicilian home, you will literally be drowned in hospitality, generosity and love :)

6 SICILY IS A BIG WONDERFUL ISLAND

Besides Palermo and Catania, the two largest cities, there are many smaller towns and villages with history just as rich and fascinating. Within easy reach from Palermo there are Cefalù, Monreale and Trapani. A bit further away you’ve got Siracusa, Taormina, Ragusa, Agrigento, just to name a few. Mount Etna, visible from all the way across the island, sets the scene around Catania and Taormina, being an ever-present force of nature and an amazing place to visit.

Series of small islands around Sicily have some of the best beaches you can find in the world! Aeolian islands with its natural volcanoes, Egadi Islands, Lampedusa, Pantelleria are all within reach via ferry boats from several Sicilian ports.

PALERMO NIGHT LIFE IS AFFORDABLE AND THERE IS A GOOD MUSIC OFFER

Palermo is home to several major theaters where world-famous opera, classical music concerts and theater productions take place. Teatro Massimo and Teatro Politeama are held in high regard in the European theatrical scene.

For a less formal fare, you will find numerous jazz and blues clubs, where some pretty fantastic local bands perform almost every night. To add to that, there are often free concerts and various events all over the city.

Palermo is known as a city that never sleeps, so be sure to immerse yourself in its rich, cheap and quirky party life, especially in the city-center area (Vucciria, Piazza Sant'Anna and Piazza Magione).

In this area you can easily find cocktails between 3 and 5 € and beer between 2 and 3 €.

8 PALERMO IS WELL CONNECTED WITH THE REST OF EUROPE WITH CHEAP FLIGHTS

From Palermo you have a lot of combination to go almost everywhere in Europe, in fact there are several cheap flights and companies.

Main companies flying from Palermo are Ryanair, Volotea and Easy-Jet. Domestic flights are pretty cheap if you book in advance, there are 3 daily flights to Milano Bergamo and 4 to Roma Fiumicino and direct connections to Venice, Bologna, Pisa, Torino, Naples, Verona and Bari.

INTERNATIONAL DIRECT FLIGHTS:

Germany, Belgium, France (Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, Toulouse), England (London and Manchester), Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Nurimberg), Greece (Athens), Ireland (Dublin), Hungary (Budapest), Malta, Poland (Krakow, Wroclaw), Romania (Bucharest), Spain (Valencia and Madrid)

9 SEA-SIDE IS WONDERFUL

In a big island such as Sicily you will find a huge number of wonderful natural beaches

Palermo area: Mondello, Addaura, Capo Gallo, Cefalù, Campofelice di Roccella, Balestrate, Isola delle Femmine, Lascari, Pollina

Agrigento area: San Leone, Scala dei Turchi (near Realmonte and Montallegro), Siculiana Marea, Gelonardo (east of Siculiana), Torre Salsa, Licata, Sciacca, Selinunte, Menfi

Trapani area: Alcamo Marina, Castellamare del golfo, Scopello, San Vito lo capo, Zingaro reserve, Mazara del vallo

Siracusa area: Augusta, Agnone Bagni, Arenella, Avola Marina, Brucoli, Fontane Bianche, Pachino, Porto Palo

Messina area: Brolo, Capo Calavà, Capo d'Orlando, Gioiosa Marea

Catania area: La Playa, Marina di Cottone (Fiumefreddo), Taormina, Giardini Naxos, Letojanni, Fondachello, Mazzarò

Aeolian Islands: These islands have numerous beaches. Spiaggia di Sabbia Nera (Black Sand Beach) on Vulcano is unique. Salina offers Pollara Beach. On the larger island of Lipari is Spiaggia Bianca (White Beach) and Ponente (Marina Lunga).

Other islands: Lampedusa (with the very famous Spiaggia dei Conigli), Pantelleria, Favignana, Marettimo, Linosa

10 WE WILL HELP YOU TO MEET NEW FRIENDS AND HAVE AN AMAZING TIME IN PALERMO

You will find a family here ready to help you, to make new friends and to build a wonderful life here without stress, exploring other towns, discovering the best places where local people go and having a lot of fun.

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EXPATS & FOREIGNERS LIVING IN PALERMO

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EXPATS LIVING IN PALERMO

COMMENTS BY EXPATS WHO LIVE OR LIVED IN THE PAST IN PALERMO

David Mellings Reasons to move to Palermo are many, but here are a few of mine. Very friendly, hospitable people, smiley happy people, from the grocery girl missing a few teeth, from the occasional strutting tranny on Via Roma to the ton up teds in their fast flashy cars, they all gave a genuine smile to me last summer. People must always come first. The Food, more on the food later.There are Vespas galore to be admired:the Vespa is surely one of the most beautiful machines ever invented by Man, or Womankind, slimline and graceful, used for transport and for pleasure. I love the sound and smell of them, too, like bizzy bees buzzing around, they are full of, and give Life, night and day they can be heard. Never yet owned one, but there's till Time. And Palermo people are Family people, I like that. Weekends belong to the Family there. We have to some extent forgotten the family tradition of eating together on Sundays in the UK, whatever happened to the OXO Family. But Family Life is vibrant in Palermo, at the weekends many of the city center roads are closed off to traffic, al fresco dining takes over, smiling happy people spill over into the streets, the aroma and whiff of good food is everywhere, compelling us all to eat drink far more than we all should. And what about Bar Touring's "La Bomba" Arancini's, they live up to their name and I always ate them under big old shady leafy trees in the park opposite, a sublime pleasure. And don't start me off on the sheer variety of architecture on offer in Palermo, from the lovely old crumbling edifices, full of character, and, if only, walls could talk, what fantastic stories they might tell to us all, from the very old to the new, more at another time. And please Palermo's, don't take the magnificent Le Poste building on Via Roma for granted, I loved its height, it's imposing bold exterior, it's scary big round columns, especially atmospheric, lit up on a lonely Saturday night, beer or wine in hand to drink at home. And I loitered, with intent, on occasion, to gawp at it's Art Deco interior, to the point, where, probably they had me down as a potential burglar. Well, if I could steal the whole building, without being noticed, I would.

DJ RAD Allow me to add one personal reason to your list mentioned above, which I could identify it as the core reason of my presence in this mystical city Palermo. It’s related primarily to its rich cultural heritage introduced in nice different world heritage sites protected by UNESCO. As a postgraduate student in Museum studies I couldn’t find a better experience to examine a living example of social-cultural syncretism between both western and eastern civilisations.

Jacqueline Vukman Palermo is like living in the Mediterranea Wild west :) with its labyrinthine streets and lapis lazuli skies ... and the thousand-and-one-nights of secrets the winds write us at every passage, how often each conversation feels like an initiation, a threshold crossing into a sacred place, into family — the way everyone said to me when i arrived in la vucciria and didn’t know italian they all emphatically said: noooooo Jasmin ! parli bene! anche bellissimo! how i even came to be Jasmin ?!? haha oh my gosh i can write volumes on how big these hearts are and how wonderful it is and yet how sometimes i miss being ‘new york’ anonymous ... because let’s face it, here we live in the land of: dov’è sei stata??! e sempre insieme! ☺️❤️

and how lucky are we to be in a place where people do notice your comings and goings and that you really can bring a smile to their eyes. 😊 Palermo is the sacred and the profane doing a fox trot, and we are all called to dance. Even when we don’t want to!!! because at the end of the day no problem is too urgent and sharing it alllll no matter what, means more than the sun, the moon and the stars. so long as we’re together.

COMMENT OR ADD YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE

Commenti: 1

#1
Igor (mercoledì, 17 aprile 2019 01:38)

I live with less than 600€ per month!
230 for renting all included, literally 0 in transportation, aroubd 70 for food at home. The other 300 are for drinking in Vucciria and Sant'Anna, having some pizza out at Chiavettieri for 3,50€, enjoying my time! This city is awesome