This idyllic corner of Italy is perfect for a short vacation.
Medieval town Panicale is a small town in the hills west of Perugia, but it’s perfect for a long weekend. There’s a luxurious 16-room boutique hotel where you can stay.
According to The Times, the Rastrello Hotel opened in 2020 in a 14th-century house overlooking Lake Trasimeno, an hour’s drive from Perugia. The hotel has an outdoor area that includes the Cucina & Giardino farm-to-table restaurant and-new in 2025-a tiny swimming pool.
The rooms are named after local olive varieties and are furnished with furniture purchased from local antique markets. All of them offer views of the Panikale hillside towards Lake Trasimeno, and some have balconies overlooking the cypress trees that local families planted in memory of their children who died in World War I.
Panicale is famous for its olives, which are everywhere. The publication noted that a long weekend around Lake Trasimeno is a complete immersion in the culture of olive oil.
Castiglione del Lago, a town perched on a rocky cliff above a lake, has a variety of shops, including the first Battilani store, which sold everything from bottle caps to cutting boards made from hand-carved olive wood. Agilla, a skin care store, offers face and body creams made from olives, grapes, and herbs. And of course, olive oil.
There are many local food places around Trasimeno. Cucina & Giardino serves salads of fresh vegetables with fagiolina del Trasimeno, a local black-eyed pea with a nutty flavor (main courses from $15).
There is a restaurant on the city square, Il Gallo nel Pozzo, which serves a variety of Italian dishes (main dishes start at $22).
The publication noted that Umbria is the only region on the Italian peninsula that does not have access to the sea, but it still has fish. La Locanda dei Pescatori is a restaurant run by the Trasimeno fishermen’s cooperative, located on the shore of a lake near Panicale (main dishes start at $15).
Of course, there’s also a culture here. Raphael’s teacher, Perugino, was born in nearby Città della Pieve and painted one of his masterpieces in the Church of San Sebastiano on the outskirts of Panicale. The exterior may appear modest, but the interior is quite different, with a scene depicting Saint Sebastian standing on a pedestal before his death, with curly-haired archers in scarlet, blue, and green leggings about to shoot him. The scene is set against a landscape of hills transitioning into flat plains, with water in the background. After going outside and looking towards the lake, tourists will be able to see the same scenery. The entrance fee to the church is $4.
For $3, tourists can take a tour of the town’s other attractions, including the 18th-century theater, the 16th-century Church of Sant’Agostino, and the Church of Santa Maria della Sbarra, which features religious art on its cornices. Tours are available twice a day and can be booked at the local tourist office.
The Church of San Michele Arcangelo is particularly impressive.
Panicale is small, but it’s a gem, and it hasn’t been overrun by mass tourism like Cortona on the other side of the lake.
But, on the other hand, as the publication noted, the whole area is like this. Near Trasimeno, there is Chiusi, an important city for the pre-Roman Etruscans. It is home to magical painted tombs, which are currently closed, but its museum, the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Chiusi, is full of phenomenal finds (admission $7). In La Citta Sotteranea, in the basement of a 16th-century palazzo, the Etruscan tunnels have been converted into a museum of the dead, with thousands of tombstones, each marked with a name, as well as sculptures of winged horses and feasting Etruscans (admission $4).
