For many travelers, Italy is seen as romantic, mysterious and a bit chaotic, with torpid heat, gorgeously rich colors and irresistible food. But Palermo, the ancient capital of Sicily and jewel of the Mediterranean, lives up to the Italy of popular imagination. People shout in Sicilian — a dialect incomprehensible to many Italian speakers — back and forth across streets and from windows. All this plays out in a city steeped in religious rituals, intricate history, stunning art and stunning decay. It's a place living amid the past — a past lost in so much of today's modernizing Italy.

Source: ABC News November 06, 2017 15:21 UTC