Perugia Chocolate Festival

For about two weeks in the month of October, Perugia (a small city south of Florence) hosts a Chocolate Festival that brings thousands of people from all over the world. A few of my friends and I booked the trip with a company based in Florence. We left Florence around 9:30 am and arrived a bit after 11:30. We found our way to the festival which was located in the city, tents were put up right in the city and the entire place shut down. There were streets lined with different booths boasting of the best chocolate in Italy.

Little vendors and specialty chocolates were there as well as bigger brands, such as Baci, Lindt, and Milka. We were also given a "ChocoCard" that allowed us to receive free samples at certain locations. When we first entered the festival grounds, Molly freaked out and started to buy chocolate right away. This taught me one of the most important lessons at a place like this: Pace yourself! We started off getting hot chocolate. It seemed like a great idea at the time because it was so cold and the wind was blowing like crazy-- we needed something to warm us up. However, Italian hot chocolate is quite different than America's. Here it is more like chocolate syrup-- very thick and creamy. I felt like I was drinking the topping to a cake. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely delicious. It just probably wasn't the right way to start off the day.

 (HUGE BACI! They look delicious...---> )

It was a fun day. We bounced around to different booths and found very interesting combinations of chocolate. One booth had chocolate shishkebobs (I was too sugared out to try it). Every booth had something different but it was all delicious. It would be pretty hard to find chocolate there that wasn't good. The one I found very strange was the chocolate cream cheese-- not a fan. I told Margherita about it and she said she thought it was a great idea! She heard about the 'chocolate Philadelphia' and wanted to buy it. I think she is going to get it the next time she is at the store. Whenever I bring up food I think is strange, she always seems to go out and buy it just so I can try it. I should stop mentioning those things to her...
     Overall, a successful day. However, I'm not going to lie, I don't want to see chocolate for the next few weeks. During breakfast on Sunday morning, Margherita brought out this box of Brazilian chocolates and gave me some to try. Granted, it was about 1pm but still! Who gives chocolate for breakfast??! She was laughing at my adventures during the festival, probably thinking I ate too much chocolate. Which doesn't explain why she gave me more chocolate... haha sometimes I think she is just too much like my Yiayia.


(The Nestle bunny in Italy?)

On a side note, Perugia is gorgeous. The city is located up on a hill and overlooks the countryside. I would certainly recommend it to anyone that is traveling through Italy. It is a beautiful city and I wish I would have been able to adventure around a bit more!