LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Palermo
built 647 days ago
Palermo Soho is a small area of Palermo Viejo around Plaza Serrano (officially Plazoleta Cortázar), and it is a newly fashionable area for fashion, design, restaurants, bars and street culture. The atmosphere in many cafés and restaurants strives to be alternative, which makes this area of the city especially popular with young, upper-middle class Argentines as well as foreign tourists. The traditional low houses have been adapted into boutiques and bars, creating a bohemian feel. The square has a crafts fair.
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To the first-time visitor, Palermo is a city of ever-changing character. An abundance of dusty museums, Arabian domes and flourishes of baroque splendor jostle with boisterous markets, chaotic traffic and oppressive summer heat. The Sicilian hotspot is a noisy, polluted, often dangerous, but always fascinating city. Don't miss marvels of Arab-Norman architecture, such as 12th-century Palazzo dei Normanni or San Giovanni degli Eremiti. Ask your hotel to arrange cabs and negotiate fares before setting off.
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Palermo has its own football team, U.S. Città di Palermo, playing in Italian Serie A and in UEFA Cup first round of the 2007-2008 season. The chairman is Maurizio Zamparini and the coach is Francesco Guidolin. The Targa Florio was an open road endurance car race held near Palermo. Founded in 1906, it used to be one of the oldest sports car racing events until it was discontinued in 1977 due to safety concerns but has since run as a rallying event.
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Palermo has good rail links with the rest of Sicily and ... to Italy. After a 3-hour ride from Messina, on the northeast coast, you'll arrive at Palermo's main terminal, Stazione Centrale, at Piazza Giulio Cesare (tel. 091-6161844), which lies on the eastern side of town and is linked to the center by a network of buses and taxis. The ticket office here is open daily from 6:45am to 8:40pm, with luggage storage available.
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In the newly formed national state, Palermo began to recover after half a century of decline. A new bourgeois mercantile class ventured timidly into the world of business, the city expanded beyond the old town centre, new quarters arose, a new thoroughfare - Via Roma - was built as part of the Giarrusso town-planning scheme, and after the example of other great European capital cities two grandiose theatres were built - the Politeama and the Massimo. This was the age of the Florios, a family of farsighted entrepreneurs who developed trade, culture, and the arts: thanks to them, the first two decades of the twentieth century saw Palermo go through a period of prosperity and become, among other things, a health resort renowned throughout Europe. The architect Ernesto Basile was the prime mover of this rebirth of the city, together with other leading artists and craftsmen of the day who came to work with him, giving rise to the short-lived but glorious period of Liberty style, as this particular form of Art Nouveau is known in Italy. In 1947 Sicily was made an autonomous region, and Palermo - much damaged by the bombings of World War II - became the seat of the Regional Sicilian Government and the Parliamentary Assembly.
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Along with the fight against crime, Palermo only belatedly came to realize the greatness of its architectural heritage. Interest in restoration has at long last arrived. The Teatro Massimo was restored and reopened in 1997, and old and historic quarters, such as Kalsa, are being restored and given a new lease on life with the opening of restaurants, galleries, and cafes. In Palermo, there is hope for the future.
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