Via Roma After Dark: Where Palermo Eats, Drinks and Remembers
It is the evening of 31 October, and the air along Via Roma is thick with the smell of roasting chestnuts and fried food from the street stalls. Families are out in force, children clutching bags of sweets. This is the eve of Ognissanti, and Palermo is marking it the way it always has: with food, with crowds, and with a quiet, steady stream of people heading toward the cemeteries to leave chrysanthemums on family graves.
On 1 November itself, All Saints' Day is a public holiday across Italy. Government offices, schools and many private businesses close, and public transport runs on a Sunday schedule. Plan your movements accordingly — the city slows down, but the streets and markets do not empty.
What to Do on Ognissanti Itself
All Saints' Day is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic calendar. Observance is typically marked by a reading of the Beatitudes, and it is increasingly common to commemorate those who died during the year. Even if you are not attending as a worshipper, stepping into one of the city's churches during the morning gives you a sense of how the day is observed — quieter than a Sunday, but no less full.
The most characteristic activity, though, is the visit to the cemetery. Italians place chrysanthemums on the graves of deceased relatives, and on the evening before All Saints' Day it is increasingly common to light candles on the graves. If you want to understand what Ognissanti means to Palermitans, go to one of the city's cemeteries — not as a spectator, but as someone paying attention to the flowers, the candles and the families moving between the rows.
In Sicily, the tradition is distinct from the rest of Italy: the dead are said to rise and bring gifts to well-behaved children. You will not find a public programme for this, but you may notice it in the way families talk about the day, and in the sweets that appear in the shops.
Markets and Street Life: What to Eat and Where
Palermo's street markets — the ones that operate daily — are where the seasonal food of this period shows up. Look for fave dei morti, the sweets eaten for All Souls' Day. The name means "beans of the dead," and the connection is ancient: in Roman times black broad beans symbolised the souls of the dead and were part of funeral rites, thrown over mourners' shoulders. In Perugia this gave rise to the cookie form of fave dei morti.
The markets themselves — with their produce, their fried food, their chestnuts — are the reliable backdrop to the holiday. The city's daily markets continue through the period, and the crowds on the evening of 31 October are part of the fabric of the night.
All Souls' Day: 2 November and the Family Table
The day after Ognissanti is la commemorazione dei defunti — All Souls' Day. Many Italians return home to be with family and pay respects to deceased relatives. This is a day for quiet observance rather than public celebration, and it is worth planning your visit around it rather than through it.
When to Go and How to Plan Around the Holiday
All Saints' Day falls on 1 November every year; in 2026 that is a Sunday, which means the holiday weekend runs from Saturday 31 October through Monday 2 November. Public transport runs on a Sunday schedule on the 1st, so build extra time into any travel across the city. Because government offices and many businesses close, sort out any administrative needs before the weekend.
Halloween — dolcetto o scherzetto, trick-or-treating — is increasingly popular among Italian children, but Ognissanti remains the more traditional observance. The evening of 31 October is when you will see the streets at their liveliest, with families out and about. If you want the full arc of the holiday, arrive on the 31st, spend the 1st moving between churches and cemeteries, and keep the 2nd for the quieter family rituals.
Start with the evening of 31 October: find a market, buy a bag of fave dei morti, and walk until you find the candles. The rest of the weekend will arrange itself around that.