For the last two weeks, our club-trotting columnist has been globe-trotting, looking for the best nightlife Italy has to offer—at least in the towns she visited. Her findings can be summed up in two words: Culture shock. — Ed.
Sunday night, 11:30 p.m. Besides grapes, Italy produces three things incredibly well: plump babies, firm pasta and hot soccer players. But when it comes to clubbing, my favorite national pastime, I suddenly find myself down and out in a Sin-less City.
Sipping a beer on the steps of an ancient church, I am overcome by the irony of my situation. Only now does it dawn on me how far from the Silver State I've come. I turn to Toto to tell him we're not in Vegas anymore, but my Italian is high-school level at best.
Perugia, a hilltop college town in Italy's Umbria state, has a lot to offer in the way of culture, history, shopping and dining. But vacationing with the 'rents, I find myself feeling adolescent. In fact, the last time I was in Italy I was 17. I am in desperate need of an adult pursuit—any adult pursuit. I find it in the town's main piazza. It's an open-air party, a time-honored tradition called la Passeggiata where one strolls without purpose, congregates with friends and watches the world go by. It begins when the shops reopen after lunch and siesta, about 5 p.m., and continues until the last guitar-toting college student stubs out his last Lucky Strike, whistles to his leash-less dog and calls it a night. There will be no after-hours tonight.
There are no nightclubs, mainly because there don't need to be. Everything else is here: the fashion, flirtation, camaraderie, alcohol, even the music. To try to gather up the corners of this spectacle and drag it into a basement or warehouse would be a mistake. Not to mention that as one can rarely smoke indoors in Italy, it would be a tough fight.
The tables outside the cafés and bars are never reserved. Music and light spill out of every doorway, from which impossibly handsome waiters appear with buckets of Prosecco sparkling wine. The bottles quickly vanish amidst the 20 bodies clustered around a bistro table for four. I wonder if they intend to split the bill. I wonder what they would say to a $300 bottle minimum at one of our more costly Vegas venues. They already pay a coperto or cover charge to sit at a table in a ristorante, so maybe our ways wouldn't be so shocking after all.
Fashion hovers between hippie, surf and haut couture. One woman's outfit even speaks English: "Sugar" on her rump, "Sexy" on her chest, and strangely, "Lunatic" on her ball cap. Beneath that, her ears display massive baubles with what looks like "Vegas" in glass and silver. She has taste, no? On the men, it's all linen, denim and beachwear, though the closest ocean is painted on a wall a few streets over. One boy's shirt tells me to "Hang Ten, Find Love on the Beach, Surf Minnesota."
Strains of song float out from every pizzeria and gelateria. Rob Thomas, Maroon 5 and 50 Cent blare and quickly die away as the toy-like cars pass. This is pretty much the only English I will hear all night except when the kids order a "hottte doggge."
Watching the interplay between the sexes, I feel like Jane Goodall. The women preen, desperate to appear effortlessly gorgeous and oblivious to the men. Any eye contact would be tantamount to foreplay. The men show off too, strutting and posing like peacocks, but keeping fiercely near one another as group-think and approval are absolutely necessary. This sounds familiar and I'm taken back to my last few columns. The pheromones, the voyeurism, the competition—it's universal.
A game of soccer starts with a crushed Fanta can for a ball. Gooooaaaallll! The winner takes a victory lap, kissing the girls who weren't watching. Beyond the confines of the piazza is deadly quiet, just the glow of an ancient TV raving about a gum so refreshing you will think you're naked, because, like the actress, you will be. Steve Wynn will do an interview that night on the BBC. Whenever I stumble through telling someone, "Sono di Las Vegas," the response inevitably is, "Ah! Vegas! I love!" with wide eyes befitting a lottery winner. It's apparently a far better hometown than Whitefish, Montana.
Vegas may be everywhere in Italy—on their clothes, their TV, the tips of their tongues—but we are the curiosity with our intricate-but-beautiful nightlife protocol of lists, hosts, bottles and dress code. These would be utterly foreign to those here who have no impediment to a good time, save perhaps a summer shower. Maybe, come some chilly Umbrian winter's night, a DJ and a roof might be welcomed. But for now, the only thing missing from la Passeggiata is a dance floor, but something tells me, given the opportunity and a visa, an intrepid young Vegas promoter could figure a way to make it happen.
Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at
[email protected].
Xania's Hot Spots for June 9–15
Thursday, June 9
Voodoo Rising, Voodoo Lounge
DJ Pryme Tyme, Rain Nightclub
Friday, June 10
Bad Ass Fridays, Beauty Bar
Saturday, June 11
Crystal Method, Ice Metaclub
Beacher's Madhouse, Hard Rock
Tuesday, June 14
Stretch Armstrong, Pure Nightclub
Wednesday, June 15
Model/Employee Search, Tabú
Models International Model Search, Tangerine
For more Hot Spots and weekly parties visit
www.TheCircuitLV.com and sign up for Xania's free weekly newsletter.