Photo: Berthold Werner, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)A thousand years of rulers (Arabs, Normans, Spaniards), compressed into a city you eat, hear and cross like a market. You don't visit Palermo: you step inside and let it sweep you away.
16 places checked against the sources. The 6 gems the guidebooks skip come first, then the classics: every card has the hard facts on top and the why below.
On the map: yellow pins are the gems. Tap a pin to jump to its card.
✦ Hidden gems · off the standard guides
By day the market dozes now, but from sunset Piazza Caracciolo becomes the city's rough front room: stalls of stigghiola and boiled octopus, one-euro beers, music until late and people sitting on the ground. It is not a zone tidied up for visitors and does not pretend to be: you stand in the crowd with your things on you, not set down. It is the exact opposite of the Kalsa in the evening, and it is ten minutes' walk away.
_-_n._0180_-_Palermo_-_Catacombe_dei_Cappuccini_-_Delcampe.jpg/500px-Crupi%2C_Giovanni_(1861-1925)_-_n._0180_-_Palermo_-_Catacombe_dei_Cappuccini_-_Delcampe.jpg)
Full €5, reduced €3, and payment is at the desk only: there are no authorised online resellers, so tickets bought elsewhere are not valid. Open daily but with a break: 9am-12.30pm with last entry at 12.10, then 3pm-5.30pm with last entry at 5.10. Inside are around eight thousand clothed mummies hung along the corridors, sorted by class and trade. Photography, filming and touching are forbidden, and the ban is what keeps them.
It is the regional gallery inside a Catalan Gothic palace in the Kalsa, and it holds two things that justify the detour on their own: the Triumph of Death, a 15th-century fresco detached and mounted on a whole wall, and Antonello da Messina's Annunciate, which is small and sits in an almost empty room. The ticket costs 10 € full and 5 € reduced, and it opens Tuesday to Saturday 09:00-19:00 while on Sunday and public holidays it shuts at 13:30, closed Monday. From Tuesday to Friday at 16:30 there is a guided tour included in the price of the ticket, which almost nobody uses because it is not announced at the door.
It is the most exuberant baroque in the city, inside the church of the Dominican monastery, and you climb to the terraces looking over the roofs and domes of the centre. There are two tickets and it is worth knowing which you are buying: the church alone costs 3 €, reduced to 2 € for Circuito Sacro holders and groups, while the monastery with the terraces is 5 €. It opens 09:00-17:00. In the cloister is the pastry shop working from the convent recipes, which is why many people go in: the cassata here is not a tourist version.
The quarter is Arab in name (al-Khalisa) and holds three things that resemble nothing else: the Spasimo, an unfinished roofless church with trees grown up in the nave, Palazzo Butera restored with the Valsecchi collection, and the gardens of Villa Giulia. Palazzo Butera is the same one in the combined ticket with the Teatro Massimo, so decide beforehand whether to buy them separately. It is the part of Palermo with no crush in the afternoon.
Goethe called it the finest promontory in the world, and at the top is the cave-sanctuary of Santa Rosalia, the city's patron. Palermitans walk up as a vow, on the old stepped path, while the bus gets you there in comfort and the view over the gulf is the same. The reserve has real trails, not strolls: on foot you need water and a hat, because almost the whole climb is exposed.
The classics
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The ticket costs €19 and covers the chapel, the royal apartments, the gardens and the archaeological area; €17 for ages 18 to 25, €15.50 for EU over-65s, €11 for ages 14 to 17, with the audio guide €5 on top. The last ticket is issued at 4.30pm Monday to Saturday, but at 12.30pm on Sundays and public holidays, which is the mistake that ruins the most mornings. The royal apartments can shut at no notice because the palace is the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly: the dates are published on the site, so read them before you travel.
Entering the cathedral to pray costs nothing, and it is open from 7am to 7pm. What is charged is the monumental area, with the crypt, the treasury and the imperial tombs of Frederick II and Roger II, Monday to Saturday 9.30am-6pm and Sunday from 10am, last entry 5.30pm. The climb to the roofs, which is what many people come for, has its ticket sales suspended for restoration. Even when it reopens, it is a visit not advised for anyone prone to vertigo or claustrophobia.
Forty minutes by bus from the centre are 6,400 square metres of gilded mosaic, the largest mosaic cycle in Italy, and the Benedictine cloister with 228 inlaid columns, no two alike. The cloister has its own ticket and its own hours, separate from the cathedral's: that is the surprise that catches out anyone arriving with a single ticket. Shoulders and knees covered to enter the church, and it is enforced.
The baroque crossroads cuts the city into its four historic quarters, with concave facades decorated in four tiers: you look at it standing, free, and the light moves around the four corners through the day, so each has its own hour. A few steps away the fountain in Piazza Pretoria, with the nudes that earned it the name fountain of shame, is seen from outside at no charge, while the raised perimeter is fenced.
Tours run every day from 9.30am to 7pm, with the last at 6.20pm, bought at the box office or online with a chosen day and time. There is also a combined OPERART ticket at €19 pairing the theatre tour with the Valsecchi collection at Palazzo Butera, over in the Kalsa: two things almost nobody connects that sit in the same city. If an evening performance falls right, you see the horseshoe hall full and working, which is another matter entirely.
It is Palermo's own beach, a white crescent between Monte Pellegrino and Capo Gallo with the art nouveau bathing pavilion on stilts in the middle. It is 30 minutes by bus from the centre, so no car is needed. In summer it is packed solid and the free stretch is small next to the clubs: June and September give the same water with a quarter of the people.
These are the markets where Palermo is still a souk, with the vendors' abbanniate and fish, citrus and spices in heaps. Ballarò is the most lived-in and the most mixed, the Capo the most photogenic. The real shopping happens early: after lunchtime the food stalls come down and what is left is street food. It is tight, unbroken crowd, so bags in front and phone in a closed pocket, not in your hand.
Chickpea panelle and potato crocchè are eaten inside the bread, not on the side, and that is how to order them. Sfincione still arrives from carts, and you smell it before you see it. Pani ca meusa is the spleen sandwich, and the question at the counter is 'schietto or maritato': schietto means spleen alone, maritato means with ricotta and caciocavallo. Getting the answer wrong is no crime, not knowing the question is the giveaway.
In Palermo the arancina is feminine and round, and the argument with Catania over its gender and shape is genuine, not folklore for visitors. Cassata and cannolo are proper bakery work: a good cannolo is filled to order, and if it is already full in the display case the shell is soft. On 13 December, for Santa Lucia, the city gives up bread and pasta as a vow and eats arancine and cuccìa: that day the fry shops have half-hour queues.
Pasta with sardines, caponata, spatola rolls: Palermo's cooking lives in the trattorie around the markets, where the menu is whatever reached the stall that morning and changes daily. The signal to walk away from is the tout on the Cassaro who stops passers-by and shows photographs of the dishes: two lanes further on, with nobody in the doorway, you eat better and pay less.
Three routes for different travel styles, built only from this dossier's verified places. Realistic pace: 2-3 stops a day.
The landmark sights, at the right pace.
Day 1
Palatine Chapel and the Norman Palace
The ticket costs €19 and covers the chapel, the royal apartments, the gardens and the archaeological area; €17 for ages 18 to 25, €15.50 for EU over-65s, €11 for ages 14 to 17, with the audio guide €5 on top. The last ticket is issued at 4.30pm Monday to Saturday, but at 12.30pm on Sundays and public holidays, which is the mistake that ruins the most mornings. The royal apartments can shut at no notice because the palace is the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly: the dates are published on the site, so read them before you travel.
The Cathedral and its rooftops
Entering the cathedral to pray costs nothing, and it is open from 7am to 7pm. What is charged is the monumental area, with the crypt, the treasury and the imperial tombs of Frederick II and Roger II, Monday to Saturday 9.30am-6pm and Sunday from 10am, last entry 5.30pm. The climb to the roofs, which is what many people come for, has its ticket sales suspended for restoration. Even when it reopens, it is a visit not advised for anyone prone to vertigo or claustrophobia.
Monreale Cathedral (day trip)
Forty minutes by bus from the centre are 6,400 square metres of gilded mosaic, the largest mosaic cycle in Italy, and the Benedictine cloister with 228 inlaid columns, no two alike. The cloister has its own ticket and its own hours, separate from the cathedral's: that is the surprise that catches out anyone arriving with a single ticket. Shoulders and knees covered to enter the church, and it is enforced.
Day 2
Quattro Canti and Piazza Pretoria
The baroque crossroads cuts the city into its four historic quarters, with concave facades decorated in four tiers: you look at it standing, free, and the light moves around the four corners through the day, so each has its own hour. A few steps away the fountain in Piazza Pretoria, with the nudes that earned it the name fountain of shame, is seen from outside at no charge, while the raised perimeter is fenced.
Teatro Massimo
Tours run every day from 9.30am to 7pm, with the last at 6.20pm, bought at the box office or online with a chosen day and time. There is also a combined OPERART ticket at €19 pairing the theatre tour with the Valsecchi collection at Palazzo Butera, over in the Kalsa: two things almost nobody connects that sit in the same city. If an evening performance falls right, you see the horseshoe hall full and working, which is another matter entirely.
Ballarò and Capo markets
These are the markets where Palermo is still a souk, with the vendors' abbanniate and fish, citrus and spices in heaps. Ballarò is the most lived-in and the most mixed, the Capo the most photogenic. The real shopping happens early: after lunchtime the food stalls come down and what is left is street food. It is tight, unbroken crowd, so bags in front and phone in a closed pocket, not in your hand.
Hidden gems away from the usual circuits.
Day 1
Vucciria by night✦ hidden gem
By day the market dozes now, but from sunset Piazza Caracciolo becomes the city's rough front room: stalls of stigghiola and boiled octopus, one-euro beers, music until late and people sitting on the ground. It is not a zone tidied up for visitors and does not pretend to be: you stand in the crowd with your things on you, not set down. It is the exact opposite of the Kalsa in the evening, and it is ten minutes' walk away.
Capuchin Catacombs✦ hidden gem
Full €5, reduced €3, and payment is at the desk only: there are no authorised online resellers, so tickets bought elsewhere are not valid. Open daily but with a break: 9am-12.30pm with last entry at 12.10, then 3pm-5.30pm with last entry at 5.10. Inside are around eight thousand clothed mummies hung along the corridors, sorted by class and trade. Photography, filming and touching are forbidden, and the ban is what keeps them.
Palazzo Abatellis✦ hidden gem
It is the regional gallery inside a Catalan Gothic palace in the Kalsa, and it holds two things that justify the detour on their own: the Triumph of Death, a 15th-century fresco detached and mounted on a whole wall, and Antonello da Messina's Annunciate, which is small and sits in an almost empty room. The ticket costs 10 € full and 5 € reduced, and it opens Tuesday to Saturday 09:00-19:00 while on Sunday and public holidays it shuts at 13:30, closed Monday. From Tuesday to Friday at 16:30 there is a guided tour included in the price of the ticket, which almost nobody uses because it is not announced at the door.
Day 2
Santa Caterina d'Alessandria and the nuns' pastries✦ hidden gem
It is the most exuberant baroque in the city, inside the church of the Dominican monastery, and you climb to the terraces looking over the roofs and domes of the centre. There are two tickets and it is worth knowing which you are buying: the church alone costs 3 €, reduced to 2 € for Circuito Sacro holders and groups, while the monastery with the terraces is 5 €. It opens 09:00-17:00. In the cloister is the pastry shop working from the convent recipes, which is why many people go in: the cassata here is not a tourist version.
The Kalsa: Lo Spasimo and the palazzi✦ hidden gem
The quarter is Arab in name (al-Khalisa) and holds three things that resemble nothing else: the Spasimo, an unfinished roofless church with trees grown up in the nave, Palazzo Butera restored with the Valsecchi collection, and the gardens of Villa Giulia. Palazzo Butera is the same one in the combined ticket with the Teatro Massimo, so decide beforehand whether to buy them separately. It is the part of Palermo with no crush in the afternoon.
Eat and drink where locals actually go.
Day 1
Street food: panelle, crocchè and pani ca meusa
Chickpea panelle and potato crocchè are eaten inside the bread, not on the side, and that is how to order them. Sfincione still arrives from carts, and you smell it before you see it. Pani ca meusa is the spleen sandwich, and the question at the counter is 'schietto or maritato': schietto means spleen alone, maritato means with ricotta and caciocavallo. Getting the answer wrong is no crime, not knowing the question is the giveaway.
Arancina, cassata and cannolo
In Palermo the arancina is feminine and round, and the argument with Catania over its gender and shape is genuine, not folklore for visitors. Cassata and cannolo are proper bakery work: a good cannolo is filled to order, and if it is already full in the display case the shell is soft. On 13 December, for Santa Lucia, the city gives up bread and pasta as a vow and eats arancine and cuccìa: that day the fry shops have half-hour queues.
Osterias and market cooking
Pasta with sardines, caponata, spatola rolls: Palermo's cooking lives in the trattorie around the markets, where the menu is whatever reached the stall that morning and changes daily. The signal to walk away from is the tout on the Cassaro who stops passers-by and shows photographs of the dishes: two lanes further on, with nobody in the doorway, you eat better and pay less.
Day 2
Ballarò and Capo markets
These are the markets where Palermo is still a souk, with the vendors' abbanniate and fish, citrus and spices in heaps. Ballarò is the most lived-in and the most mixed, the Capo the most photogenic. The real shopping happens early: after lunchtime the food stalls come down and what is left is street food. It is tight, unbroken crowd, so bags in front and phone in a closed pocket, not in your hand.
Vucciria by night✦ hidden gem
By day the market dozes now, but from sunset Piazza Caracciolo becomes the city's rough front room: stalls of stigghiola and boiled octopus, one-euro beers, music until late and people sitting on the ground. It is not a zone tidied up for visitors and does not pretend to be: you stand in the crowd with your things on you, not set down. It is the exact opposite of the Kalsa in the evening, and it is ten minutes' walk away.
Tell us how many days you're staying and in which month: we'll compose an itinerary from this dossier's verified places, with notes about the period.
Your itinerary
Day 1
Palatine Chapel and the Norman Palace
The ticket costs €19 and covers the chapel, the royal apartments, the gardens and the archaeological area; €17 for ages 18 to 25, €15.50 for EU over-65s, €11 for ages 14 to 17, with the audio guide €5 on top. The last ticket is issued at 4.30pm Monday to Saturday, but at 12.30pm on Sundays and public holidays, which is the mistake that ruins the most mornings. The royal apartments can shut at no notice because the palace is the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly: the dates are published on the site, so read them before you travel.
The Cathedral and its rooftops
Entering the cathedral to pray costs nothing, and it is open from 7am to 7pm. What is charged is the monumental area, with the crypt, the treasury and the imperial tombs of Frederick II and Roger II, Monday to Saturday 9.30am-6pm and Sunday from 10am, last entry 5.30pm. The climb to the roofs, which is what many people come for, has its ticket sales suspended for restoration. Even when it reopens, it is a visit not advised for anyone prone to vertigo or claustrophobia.
Ballarò and Capo markets
These are the markets where Palermo is still a souk, with the vendors' abbanniate and fish, citrus and spices in heaps. Ballarò is the most lived-in and the most mixed, the Capo the most photogenic. The real shopping happens early: after lunchtime the food stalls come down and what is left is street food. It is tight, unbroken crowd, so bags in front and phone in a closed pocket, not in your hand.
Day 2
Monreale Cathedral (day trip)
Forty minutes by bus from the centre are 6,400 square metres of gilded mosaic, the largest mosaic cycle in Italy, and the Benedictine cloister with 228 inlaid columns, no two alike. The cloister has its own ticket and its own hours, separate from the cathedral's: that is the surprise that catches out anyone arriving with a single ticket. Shoulders and knees covered to enter the church, and it is enforced.
Quattro Canti and Piazza Pretoria
The baroque crossroads cuts the city into its four historic quarters, with concave facades decorated in four tiers: you look at it standing, free, and the light moves around the four corners through the day, so each has its own hour. A few steps away the fountain in Piazza Pretoria, with the nudes that earned it the name fountain of shame, is seen from outside at no charge, while the raised perimeter is fenced.
Street food: panelle, crocchè and pani ca meusa
Chickpea panelle and potato crocchè are eaten inside the bread, not on the side, and that is how to order them. Sfincione still arrives from carts, and you smell it before you see it. Pani ca meusa is the spleen sandwich, and the question at the counter is 'schietto or maritato': schietto means spleen alone, maritato means with ricotta and caciocavallo. Getting the answer wrong is no crime, not knowing the question is the giveaway.
Day 3
Teatro Massimo
Tours run every day from 9.30am to 7pm, with the last at 6.20pm, bought at the box office or online with a chosen day and time. There is also a combined OPERART ticket at €19 pairing the theatre tour with the Valsecchi collection at Palazzo Butera, over in the Kalsa: two things almost nobody connects that sit in the same city. If an evening performance falls right, you see the horseshoe hall full and working, which is another matter entirely.
Mondello
It is Palermo's own beach, a white crescent between Monte Pellegrino and Capo Gallo with the art nouveau bathing pavilion on stilts in the middle. It is 30 minutes by bus from the centre, so no car is needed. In summer it is packed solid and the free stretch is small next to the clubs: June and September give the same water with a quarter of the people.
Arancina, cassata and cannolo
In Palermo the arancina is feminine and round, and the argument with Catania over its gender and shape is genuine, not folklore for visitors. Cassata and cannolo are proper bakery work: a good cannolo is filled to order, and if it is already full in the display case the shell is soft. On 13 December, for Santa Lucia, the city gives up bread and pasta as a vow and eats arancine and cuccìa: that day the fry shops have half-hour queues.
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Recurring scams and local rules worth knowing before you arrive.
⚠ Scams to know
UK consular advice reports higher levels of petty crime in Italy, particularly bag-snatching and pickpocketing, in city centres and at major attractions. In Palermo the natural ground for it is the historic markets and crowded buses, where the crush is part of the experience.
How to avoid it: Zipped crossbody bag worn in front, phone never in a back pocket, backpack on your chest in the markets. Maximum attention boarding and leaving buses.
SourceThieves on scooters snatch bags and phones from distracted pedestrians on pavements and at bus stops, sometimes using a fake accident or a two-person distraction.
How to avoid it: Walk on the inner side of the pavement with your bag on the wall side, don't stand at the kerb using your phone, and never resist a snatch.
SourceIn places with no displayed prices the bill can arrive inflated, with cover charges and items you never agreed to. In Italy the price list must be knowable before you order and a receipt is due: those are the two concrete footholds if something does not add up. There is no official warning on the phenomenon itself, so we report it as a recurring account.
How to avoid it: Avoid places with touts and laminated six-language menus; check the bill line by line. The real trattorias are in the alleys and around the markets.
SourceThe free taste that turns into a charge, and the pushy sellers along the market streets, are the fringe of a rule few visitors know: UK consular advice points out that buying from unlicensed street traders is illegal in Italy, and the penalty can fall on the buyer too.
How to avoid it: Do not accept anything pressed into your hand and do not buy from unlicensed sellers: the risk is not just the price, it is a fine for you.
SourceLicensed Italian taxis carry a taxi sign on the roof and the company name and number written on the side, as UK consular advice notes, and they run a meter. Whoever approaches you outside the station or the port quoting a price out loud usually has neither.
How to avoid it: Take taxis from official ranks, check the sign and the number on the side, and insist the meter is on.
SourceTours and skip-the-line entries sold in the street outside monuments may correspond to nothing actually booked, and the ticket is on sale at the site's own desk anyway. This is a recurring traveller report rather than an official warning.
How to avoid it: Book visits and tickets only on the monuments' official sites or with licensed guides; for the Palatine Chapel the official online ticket solves the queue.
Source⚖ Laws & penalties
Since 1 July 2025 Palermo charges €4 per person/night in B&Bs, holiday rentals, hostels and campsites and €3-5 in hotels (by star rating), for the first 4 consecutive nights only. Under-12s exempt. Paid at the property.
SourceThe historic centre is a Limited Traffic Zone on weekdays, with camera-controlled gates: entering without authorisation means an automatic fine (and with a rental car it arrives months later, with extra fees). Many central streets are also pedestrianised.
SourceThe AMAT ticket (€1.60, 90 minutes) must be validated on boarding: travelling without a validated ticket brings hefty fines, and inspectors give tourists no discounts.
SourceOn weekends and in the warm months the city issues ordinances banning evening takeaway sales of alcohol in glass and street drinking outside licensed terraces in the nightlife zones (Vucciria, Champagneria, Kalsa). Rules change often: watch the signs and follow the bars' lead.
SourceThe Palatine Chapel, the Cathedral and Monreale require covered shoulders and knees; at Monreale enforcement is strict and in high season shoulder covers are sold at the entrance. No flash photography on the mosaics and no photography at all in the Capuchin Catacombs.
SourceCentral Palermo is a densely populated urban area: drone flights must comply with ENAC/EASA rules (registration, no crowds, no monuments without permits). Substantial fines and confiscation for violations.
Source
Hover over a month on the timeline for details.
When it works best, by type of trip
Perfect walking temperatures between markets and monuments, gorgeous light and still-reasonable prices.
Santa Rosalia week is Palermo at full volume: a unique experience, but with fierce heat and lodging to book months ahead.
Turquoise water without the July-August crush, when the free beach fills up at dawn.
Northern-European-spring weather, half-empty monuments and rock-bottom prices: the best Palermo for low-cost travellers.
Rough estimate (lodging + meals + local transport), not a precise verified source.
Did you know... The Capuchin Catacombs preserve some 8,000 mummified bodies displayed in period dress: one of the most striking places in Europe.
From Falcone Borsellino airport: the Prestia e Comandè shuttle every 30 minutes, €6 online (€6.50 on board/ticket office), €10 return, ~50 minutes to the central station; alternatively the Punta Raisi-Centrale metropolitan train. In town, AMAT buses and trams cost €1.60 per ride (90 minutes, always validate); the old town, though, crosses on foot in 30 minutes. For Monreale take bus 389 from Piazza Indipendenza; for Mondello bus 806 from the Politeama. Taxis: meter on, or use the apps.
⚠ Areas to avoid
Good to know
Did you know... Palermo's historic markets (Ballarò, Capo, Vucciria) descend directly from the Arab souks: the abbanniata, the vendors' cry, has been the same for a thousand years.
Did you know... The Festino di Santa Rosalia has been celebrated since 1625: every 14 July the triumphal float of the 'Santuzza' crosses the Cassaro among hundreds of thousands of people.
Short answers drawn from the verified data of this dossier: details and sources are in the sections above.
Season low (November-March): 45-70€ per day; Season mid (April-June, October): 65-100€ per day; Season high (July-September (peak during the Festino)): 85-140€ per day.
City and culture: April-May, October. Perfect walking temperatures between markets and monuments, gorgeous light and still-reasonable prices. Festino and high summer: 10-15 July. Santa Rosalia week is Palermo at full volume: a unique experience, but with fierce heat and lodging to book months ahead. Beach time at Mondello: June, September. Turquoise water without the July-August crush, when the free beach fills up at dawn. Budget and mild winter: November-March. Northern-European-spring weather, half-empty monuments and rock-bottom prices: the best Palermo for low-cost travellers.
The tourist centre is safe even in the evening along the main axes (Maqueda, Cassaro, Politeama). At night it's better to avoid the deserted alleys around the central station, Ballarò after the market closes and the dark side lanes of the Vucciria; outlying districts like ZEN or Brancaccio hold no tourist sights and you won't end up there by accident. The real risk everywhere is bag-snatching, not assault. Italy is rated Level 2 ('exercise increased caution' for generic terrorism risk) by the US State Department: in practical Palermo terms the risks are pickpocketing and scooter snatches.
No. In the city a car is a handicap: camera-enforced ZTL in the old town (weekdays), chaotic traffic, near-impossible parking and break-ins on cars left with belongings in sight. The centre is walkable, Mondello and Monreale are reachable by bus. A car only makes sense for exploring western Sicily (Segesta, Erice, Scopello): rent it for those days and return it.
From Falcone Borsellino airport: the Prestia e Comandè shuttle every 30 minutes, €6 online (€6.50 on board/ticket office), €10 return, ~50 minutes to the central station; alternatively the Punta Raisi-Centrale metropolitan train. In town, AMAT buses and trams cost €1.60 per ride (90 minutes, always validate); the old town, though, crosses on foot in 30 minutes. For Monreale take bus 389 from Piazza Indipendenza; for Mondello bus 806 from the Politeama.
Vucciria by night, Capuchin Catacombs, Palazzo Abatellis, Santa Caterina d'Alessandria and the nuns' pastries, The Kalsa: Lo Spasimo and the palazzi, Monte Pellegrino and the Sanctuary of Santa Rosalia.
Pickpocketing in markets, on buses and in crowds; Scooter bag-snatching (scippatori); Tourist-trap restaurants with padded bills; 'Free' samples and pushy vendors.
Every source below was opened and read, not just cited. Entries that didn't hold up were downgraded to "low confidence" or dropped, not presented as certain.
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