La Zisa stands a kilometre north of the old town, an isolated Norman block surviving from a much larger lost palace complex set in royal hunting parks. Three storeys of stone with a flat roof, it is the most overtly Arab building in Palermo — visually closer to a Cairo palace than to anything else in Italy.
The ground-floor Sala della Fontana is the highlight: an arched hall with a wall-mounted fountain, marble paving, and a band of stucco muqarnas (honeycomb vaulting) at the springing of the vault. The upper floors hold a small museum of Islamic-period and Norman objects. A few minutes' walk from the Notarbartolo metro station.