Palermo’s Ballaro market, found in the tight and tangled streets of the Albergheria quarter (not far from the city’s cathedral), is intriguing, lively, messy, and colourful with heaps of stalls stocked with lots of fresh produce and useful household things.

An Arab legacy Ballaro is likely a legacy from Sicily’s indelible Arab interlude. Writer Raleigh Trevallyn says it is of medieval origin, but it is thought, he adds, that a market existed there in Muslim times. It’s centuries old with a certain souk like feel (it has to be Muslim). Well worth a slow wander when in Palermo. A city to spend a lifetime in.