Visiting the Second City.(International Edition; SPECIAL REPORT: TRAVEL)(Palermo, Italy)

Byline: Cathleen McGuigan

Gritty yet glamorous, Palermo is a poor man's Rome.

Sicily is a magnet for tourists, with its ruggedly spectacular coastline and ancient Greek and Roman ruins. But many travelers steer clear of Palermo, the island's capital and mafia stronghold. Yet it's a far less expensive destination than Rome. Palermo is one of the world's great "second" cities--like Manchester, England, or Buffalo, New York--that's maybe a little grittier than the better-known cultural capital that overshadows it, but full of its own historic riches. Palermo's civilization reaches at least to the Phoenicians, who settled during the first millennium B.C. From there, the city's timeline looks like a fever chart of invaders, colonists and conquerors. Of its multitude of significant old churches, two overlooking the city's Piazza Bellini perfectly embody the cultural collisions: the starkly beautiful San Cataldo, from the 12th-century Norman conquest, is topped by three small red domes, a reminder of the enduring Arab influence; right next to it, an architectural hodgepodge known as La Martorana contains stunning 12th-century Byzantine gold mosaics as well as Baroque frescoes and froufrou from five centuries later.

Palermo's own last glory days peaked in the late 1800s, when the palm-shaded city was still a glamorous getaway for European royalty and artists. That era left a legacy of art nouveau ...