Palermo is surrounded by mountains and by a green belt made of citrus trees, called La Conca D’oro (The Golden Valley), which stretches out to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where the deep harbor contributed to the establishment of this city as a center for business and exchange and making Palermo one of the most important cities in the Mediterranean Sea. 
The population boasts about 725,000 inhabitants, and it is the capital of the region. 

Some famous sons of Palermo are: the chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro, the movie director Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), the writer Tommaso di Lampedusa (The Leopard), the painter Renato Gattuso and the statesman Vittorio Emanuele Orlando.

Palermo offers a myriad of gastronomic specialties.
At lunchtime, street vendors offer the arancine, rice balls, or sfincione, baked soft bread dough, covered with onions, cheese and tomatoes; panelle, chickpea fritters; or the vastedde. Among the appetizers to savor: the caponatina, eggplant salad; cucuzza  and sweet and sour squash; caciu all’argintera, fried cheese with garlic, oregano and vinegar; olive fritti, fried olives with fresh oregano; or the frittella, a sweet and pungent combination of peas, fava beans and artichokes. 

Traditional homemade pasta dishes include: pasta con sarde, perciatelli pasta with a sauce of fennel, fresh sardines, saffron, raisins, pine nuts; anelletti col capoliato, baked ring-shaped pasta with chopped meat, light tomato sauce and cheeses; or pasta chi vrocculi, made with cauliflower, saffron, raisins, anchovies and pine nuts, to name a few.
Among the main dishes—if you have any room left: the falsumagru, rolled veal stuffed with sausages, eggs, olives, pine nuts and cheese; sardi a beccaficu, rolled fresh sardines stuffed with breadcrumbs, raisins, pine nuts), herbs and spices; polpo, in a salad or fried;  bracioli, rolled beef in Marsala-orange sauce; orpesce muratu, poached fish. 

 The selection of desserts is impressive! To mention a few: the cassata siciliana, a cake stuffed with ricotta; cannoli;  the famous gelati, ice cream;  i pezzetti, ice cream stuffed with ricotta cream and fruit;minni di virgine, beignets with ricotta; frutti di martorana, marzipan in the shape of fruit; the gelo di mellone, a gelatin of watermelon, with chocolate chips, scented with cinnamon; the iris, a light roll stuffed with a special cream and fried.

To celebrate a particular holyday or a saint: the sfinge of Saint Joseph, the biscuits of Saint Martin, the cuccia of Saint Lucy, cooked grain with ricotta or chocolate cream), cucciddati with dry figs, petrafennula and mostaccioli for Christmas.