Once called the Marina, the Foro Italico is Palermo’s communal seafront. After being neglected and inaccessible for years after World War II, today, the long public park is where Palermitani take walks, play soccer, ride bicycles, and bask in the sun. It’s also where large-scale events like the fireworks during Il Festino, the city-wide party celebrating their patroness Santa Rosalia, are best viewed.
This waterfront was created because the city needed a place to put all of the rubble from buildings destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II. The sea used to be a lot closer in. Now it is a beautiful place to walk, ride a bicycle, or sit on a bench and look out at the Tyrrhenian Sea. Tragedy turned into beauty.
Yes, John, learned that about it… It also was the site of a luna park, or carnival for many years that was Mafia infested and unsafe. It wasn’t until the late 1990s/2000 when Leoluca Orlando led a municipal project to create the space that it is today.
Tragedy into beauty and solidarity indeed!