Street Food at the Ballaro Market, Palermo

Palermo's Ballaro market has been running in the Albergheria neighbourhood since the 10th century, when the Arabs built their quarter around it. Two thousand years of Sicilian history — Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Arab, Norman, Spanish — have deposited themselves in the street food. The arancini (fried rice balls, filled with ragu or spinach and cheese) are Arab in origin. The stigghiola (intestines of lamb or goat grilled over charcoal on the roadside) is as old as Sicily itself. The panelle (chickpea fritters) are Arab-derived, served in a sesame roll — the pane e panelle is the correct Palermo street food sequence.

The market itself is a spectacle independent of the food: narrow lanes between colourful market stalls, vendors calling prices in thick Sicilian dialect, pyramids of blood oranges from the Etna foothills, swordfish laid out on ice with their enormous eyes still bright, eggplants glossy as lacquer. The light in the market in the morning — shafts of sun through the canvas awnings, catching the dust and the steam from the food — is Caravaggio light, and Caravaggio spent time in Sicily.

Palermo is one of Italy's most chaotic, intense, and rewarding cities. The Norman Palace with its Palatine Chapel (extraordinary golden Byzantine mosaics), the Martorana church, the catacombs of the Capuchin Monastery (8,000 mummified bodies displayed in corridors — spectacular and disturbing in equal measure), and the street art-covered neighbourhood of Ballarò itself are all within walking distance of each other. Give the city at least three days.