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In any case, folks start filing into the piazza and the Gallos are running around making sure they're well oiled with Limoncello, coffee, Sambuca and some drinks we can't identify on account of they're the color of the late evening sky and have little umbrellas sticking out of them. Finally, Signore Gallo approaches us with a pitcher of bluish liquid. "Long drink!" he says as he plops the pitcher down on the table, "una specialità della casa." You gotta realize that long drink is pretty much all the English he knows, but he's pretty used to English speaking people by now and he can deal with just about any request.
We thank him and start drinking the sweet concoction. I can't really describe it except to say that it definitely tastes better once the alcohol starts coursing though your veins.
On his way back to the bar, Aldo sends the night's diva to our table. She's a gravely-voiced American and, despite living in Italy for over a year, she doesn't know enough Italian to really talk to anyone in the piazza but us. Actually, we didn't find that out until after the concert had begun, when she was trying to light a little fire under the crowd by intending to shout out in Italian "Don't you just love the blues?" What she got, in fact was some pretty confused silence, having actually said, "I like the blues" and being miffed when people just sat there as if to say, "Yeah, so...?"
Ok, so it wasn't Carnege Hall. Still, there's something entrancing about actually living in a place and participating in the everyday events that make a little town of 500 (which swells to 800 in the summer) different than one in the U. S. It's small enough that maybe you wouldn't want to make a special long drive to see Panicale, cute as it is (although Art lovers may want to check out the famous fresco by Il Perugino depicting the Martirio del Santo in the Chiesa of S. Sebastiano). The fact is that just about every Umbrian or Tuscan hilltown is charming. Many Italian rental places and agritourismos are located on dirt roads way out of town, but Panicale has rental places in historic houses right in the historic center, where the visitor can feel, for a short time at least, that he's a part of a little community. The Gallos go out of their way to make this a reality. And they do it without speaking English. That's something you won't experience every day.
Besides, Panicale is central to some pretty impressive tourist destinations, including Perugia to the Northeast and Tuscany's Chiusi just 16 km to the west. And lake Trasimeno is right to the north. Access to Rome or Florence is easy by car, or you can drive to nearby Chiusi and take the train just about anywhere in Tuscany or Umbria if you fear driving much in Italy.
