Best time to visit Palermo

Italy · Europe

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Palermo

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in Apr, May, Jun, Sep or Oct — these months score within a whisker of each other; 28C max, 1 rainy day. Feb is the next best.

Plan this trip

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too.

Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Flights

Choose where you fly from

Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

Rent direct

Travel insurance

SafetyWing Ad

Mobile data (eSIM)

Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.

Things to do in Palermo

Catacombe dei Cappuccini The catacombs of the Capuchin convent contain over 8,000 mummified ex-residents from…
Monreale Cathedral The cathedral of Monreale is one of the greatest extant examples of Norman architecture.
Palermo Cathedral Honey-coloured and Catalan influenced.
Palazzo dei Normanni The oldest royal residence in Europe…
Palatine Chapel It's one of the artistic gems of Palermo…
Monreale A village 8 km west of Palermo…
Church of the Gesù The Gesu Church is one of the most architecturally important in Palermo.

Tours and tickets in Palermo

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Palermo), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	15°	10d	77%	7.8h	ok	15C max, 10 rainy days
Feb	15°	8d	76%	8.9h	good	15C max, 8 rainy days
Mar	17°	10d	75%	9.7h	good	17C max, 10 rainy days
Apr	19°	6d	71%	10.6h	sweet spot	19C max, 6 rainy days
May	22°	6d	71%	12.1h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Jun	28°	1d	66%	13.4h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Jul	31°	1d	62%	13.8h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Aug	31°	2d	65%	12.6h	okbusy	busier than usual
Sep	28°	4d	72%	11.1h	sweet spot	28C max, 4 rainy days
Oct	24°	7d	75%	9.3h	sweet spot	24C max, 7 rainy days
Nov	20°	11d	78%	8.1h	ok	20C max, 11 rainy days
Dec	16°	9d	77%	7.6h	ok	16C max, 9 rainy days

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at the Quattro Canti, the old town, 25 km from the airport (PMO): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest from May to August; quietest in January and February.

Then and now

Palermo's November days now average 19.6°C, 1.4°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 3 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	13.8°	14.1°	15.5°	18.6°	22.4°	26.4°	30.0°	29.9°	27.2°	23.3°	18.3°	15.1°
2017–26	14.6°	15.2°	16.6°	18.9°	22.4°	27.7°	30.9°	30.9°	27.6°	23.7°	19.6°	16.2°
Change	+0.9°	+1.2°	+1.1°	+0.3°	+0.1°	+1.3°	+0.9°	+1.1°	+0.4°	+0.4°	+1.4°	+1.2°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

How far Palermo is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type C and F and L plugs at 230 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Euro. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for Italy: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — By law, shops, cafés and bars must take a card payment of any amount, and refusing one is fined. Carry a little cash for tips.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Not customary; restaurants outside Rome often add a cover charge (coperto). Leaving the change in cafés and taxis is common.

Getting around Palermo

An AMAT bus or tram ticket costs €1.40 and lasts 90 minutes, and a day ticket €3.50: validate it on board as soon as you get on. Buy tickets in the MyAMAT app or at AMAT's kiosk by the Central Station; a driver may sell one for €1.80, in coins, if you board by the front door. From the airport, Trenitalia trains run to Palermo Centrale, one or two an hour, for €6.80: tap a contactless Visa, Mastercard or American Express card on the TAP&TAP validator before boarding and again, with the same card, on arrival. Prestia e Comandè buses leave the airport every 30 minutes for the Central Station, about 50 minutes away, for €6 (€6.50 bought on board, in cash or by card).

Apps — Rides: FreeNow, itTaxi, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp. In Rome these apps book licensed taxis; Uber also offers the dearer Uber Black.

Although Palermo is a fair-sized city, most of the interesting sites around the centre can easily be reached on foot. There are a large number of bicycles and e-scooters for hire across the city. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Palermo, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — police 112 · ambulance 118 · fire 115.
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (105)

Palermo in pictures

Palermo Palazzo Chiaramonte 2867 — i

Phyrexian, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Aerial view Palermo, Buenos Aires (2) — i

Ricardo Patiño, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Palermo02 flickr — i

Xerones, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

PalermoME Hall — i

User:Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Palermo, Buenos Aires — i

https://www.flickr.com/people/pedro_angelini/, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Palermo is like

Palermo (Sicilian: Palermu) is on the northern coast of the Italian island of Sicily. It is a city with a thousand years of history, beautiful Arab-Norman architecture, amazing food, and lively neighbourhoods. It is a bit scruffy around the edges, but a visit of a few days will make you want to stay for weeks. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Because of its variety of monuments, attesting to its long and rich history, and the number of other cultural and naturalistic attractions… More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Football: Palermo FC play soccer in Serie B, the second tier. Their home ground Stadio Renzo Barbera (capacity 36,300) is 5 km north of city centre. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Palermo Airport (PMO IATA Falcone–Borsellino Airport) (32 km west of the city at Punta Raisi). Has flights incoming from other Italian centres and major European cities on a regular basis. More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: Palermo is a quite safe city during the day but it can be an intimidating city at night, especially on week days in the winter, when there are not many students, visitors and locals around. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Palermo, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Palermo

Also in Italy

Nearby

Kind of place

Palermo is in Italy, Europe. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book through one, at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the scores on this page, which are computed from climate and fare data before any link is built.